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MR. PRATT 


By JOSEPH C. LINCOLN 


CAP’N ERI 

Eighth American Edition. 

Published also in England, Canada and Australia 
“Everybody’s Friend.” — N. Y. Sun, 

All the freshness of realism wedded to humor .” — New 
York Mail." 

“Cap’n Eri is queer, quaint and delightful. Its title 
figure is too much of a character by himself to be 
referred to for comparison even as a nautical David 
Harum .” — New York World. 

Illustrated in Colors by Ch. Weber-Ditzler 

1 2 mo. Cloth, $1 .50 


PARTNERS of the TIDE 

“Delightful Cape Codders .” — New York Sun. 

“Dry Yankee wit, shrewdness, and common sense are 
scattered through the pages. — The Dial." 

“Particularly delightful and delightfully particular are 
the ‘old maids who,’ as the stage driver says, ‘come to 
realize they needed a man around the house, but as 
there wasn’t no bids in that line compromised and 
adopted a boy .” — Boston Transcript. 

With Frontispiece in Color bp Ch. IVeber-Ditzler and 
Decorations by John Rae. 

1 2mo. Cloth, $1.50 


A. S. BARNES & COMPANY 

■ NEW YORK ===== 




















































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MR. PRATT 


A NOVEL 


BY 



JOSEPH C. LINCOLN 

Author of 


"Cap'n Eri,” “ Partners of the Tide.” 


FRONTISPIECE BY 
HORACE TAYLOR 



NEW YORK 

A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY 


I 


9 


o 


6 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

MAY 14 1906 

opynjjnt Entry 

’ XAC, i\0. 

S’ 6 



Copyright, 1906, by 
A. S. BARNES & COMPANY 


Published May, 1906 


MY FRIEND 


GILMAN HALL 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


I The Masters .... 

II The Man 

III Too Many Cooks 

IV The Pig Race .... 

V The Cruise of the “Dora Bassett” 
VI Ozone Island .... 

VII Sweet Simplicity 
VIII Mr. Scudder’s Presents 
IX The “Fresh Airers” 

X The Voyage of the Ark . 

XI Eureka 

XII Miss Sparrow’s Diagnosis . 

XIII The Lawn Fete 

XIV “The Best Laid Plans” . 

XV The White Plague . 

XVI The Natural Life 
XVII Across the Bay 
XVIII Poor Redney .... 
XIX Simple versus Duplex 


PAGE 




/ 





NOTE 


The germ from which the yarn of “ Mr. 
Pratt ” developed was contained in a short 
story hy the author, which appeared in “Every- 
body’s Magazine.” In that story, “ The Sim- 
plicity of It,” the “Heavenly Twins” were 
middle aged men, and their characters — as well as 
their names — were not those of Hartley and Van 
Brunt . But they did try to live the “Natural 
Life,” and Mr. Solomon Pratt then, as in the 
present instance, assisted in the attempt and told 
the tale. 

J. C. L. 

Hackensack , N. J., March 28, 1906. 


4 


4 


\ 



44 " 
















MR. PRATT 


CHAPTER I 

THE MASTERS 

1 HEARD about the pair first from Emeline 
Eldredge, “ Emmie T.” we always call her. 
She was first mate to the cook at the Old 
Home House that summer. She come down to 
the landing one morning afore breakfast and hove 
alongside of where I was setting in the stern of 
my sloop, the Dora Bassett, untangling fish lines. 
She had a tin pail in her fist, indicating that her 
sailing orders was to go after milk. But she saw 
me and run down in ballast to swap yarns. 

“My sakes! Mr. Pratt,” says she; “have you 
heard about Nate Scudder? ” 

“ Yes,” I says. “ Ever since I come to Well- 
mouth.” 

“ I mean about what him and his wife has just 
done,” says she. “ It’s the queerest thing! You’ll 
never guess it in the world.” 


MR. PRATT 


“ Ain’t been giving his money to the poor, has 
he?” says I, for, generally speaking, it takes a 
strong man and a cold chisel to separate Nate 
Scudder from a cent. 

“ Oh ! ain’t you the funniest thing! ” she 
squeals. “No indeed! He’s let his house to 
some city folks, and ” 

“Ain’t that the cook calling you?” I asks. 
I’m a homeopath when it comes to Emmie T. ; I 
like to take her in small doses — she agrees with 
me better that way. 

It was the cook, and Emeline kited off after the 
milk, only stopping long enough to yell back: 
“ Folks say they’re dreadful rich and stylish. I’ll 
tell you next time I see you.” 

Well, I cal’lated she wouldn’t — not if I saw her 
first — and didn’t pay no more attention to the 
yarn, except to think that June was pretty early 
for city folks to be renting houses. There was 
only three or four boarders at the Old Home so 
far, and I was to take a couple of ’em over to 
Trumet in the sloop that very day. 

But, while we was on the way over, one of the 
couple — sort of a high-toned edition of Emmie T. 
she was — she turns to her messmate, another pullet 
from the same coop, and says she, “ Oh say ! ” she 


THE MASTERS 


3 


says. “Have you heard about the two young 
fellers from New York whoVe rented that Scud- 
der house on the — on the — what do they call it? 
Oh, yes! the Neck road. I heard Nettie Brown 
say they were too dear for anything. Let’s drive 
past there to-morrow; shall we? ” 

So there it was again, and I begun to wonder 
what sort of critters Nate had hooked. I judged 
that they must be a kind of goldfish or he wouldn’t 
have baited for ’em. Nate ain’t the man to be 
satisfied with a mess of sculpins. 

I landed the boarders at Trumet and they went 
up to the village to do some shopping. Then I 
headed across the harbor to shake hands with the 
Trumet light keeper, who is a friend of mine. 
His wife told me he’d gone over to town, too, so 
I come about and run back to the landing again. 
And I’m blessed if there wa’n’t Nate Scudder him- 
self, setting on a mackerel keg at the end of the 
wharf and looking worried. 

I hadn’t hoisted the jib on the way down, and 
now I let the mainsail drop and went forward. 

“ Hello, Nate! ” I hailed, as the Dora Bassett 
slid up to the wharf. 

He kind of jumped, and looked at me as if he’d 
just woke up. 


4 


MR. PRATT 


“ Hello, Sol ! ” he says, sort of mournful. 
Then he turned his eyes toward the bay again 
and appeared to be starting in on another nap. 

“ Hear you got some boarders over to your 
home,” I says, heaving him a line as a hint for 
him to come out of his trance and make me fast. 

“ Yes,” says he, paying no attention to the line. 

“ Come early in the season, ain’t they? ” says I, 
grabbing hold of one of the wharf spiles and 
bringing my boat alongside easy as I could. 

“ Ya-as,” says he, again. Then he fetched a 
long breath and opened his mouth as if he was 
going to go on. But he didn’t; all that come out 
of the mouth afore it shut up was another “ Yes.” 

I made the Dora Bassett fast myself and 
climbed on to the wharf. 

“Are they cal’lating to stay long?” I asks. 
He’d got me interested. Seemed to have the 
“ yes ” disease bad. 

“ Hey? ” says he. “ Oh — er — yes.” 

I was a little mite provoked. Not that I was 
hankering to have Nate Scudder heave his arms 
around my neck and tell me he loved me, but I 
didn’t know any reason why my pumps should 
suck dry every time I tried ’em. 

“Humph!” I grunted, starting to walk off. 


THE MASTERS 


5 


“Well, be careful of yourself; look out it don’t 
develop into nothing worse.” 

“ What do you mean? ” he sings out, seeming 
to be waked up for good, at last. 

“ Oh,” says I; “ I judged by the way you kept 
your mouth shut that you had sore throat and 
was afraid of getting cold. Good day.” 

Would you believe it, he got up off that mack- 
erel keg and chased after me. 

“ Hold on, Sol ! ” he says, kind of pleading. 
“ Don’t be in such a hurry. I wanted to talk to 
you.” 

I had to laugh; couldn’t help it. “ Yes,” says 
I, “ I kind of suspicioned that you did, from your 
chatty remarks. If you’d said ‘ yes ’ nine or ten 
times more I’d have been sure of it.” 

“Well, I did,” he says. “I wanted to ask 
you — I thought I’d see what you thought — you 
see ” 

Here he kind of faded away again, and stood 
still and wiped his forehead. 

“ Look here, Nate Scudder,” I says, “ for a 
man that wants to talk you make the poorest fist 
at it of anybody ever I see. Why don’t you try 
singing or making signs? I wouldn’t wonder if 
you got ahead faster.” 


6 


MR. PRATT 


He grinned, a feeble sort of lop-sided grin, 
and tried another tack. 

“ You was speaking of them boarders of mine,” 
he says. 

“ Yes; / was,” I says. 

“ They come day afore yesterday — early,” says 
he. 

“ Um-hum. So I heard,” I says. 

He fidgeted a minute or so more. Then he 
took me by the arm and led me back to the keg. 

“ Sol,” he says, “ set down. I want to ask 
you something. By gum! I got to ask some- 
body. I’m — I’m worried.” 

“ Yes? ” I said, giving him a little of his own 
medicine. 

“ Yes. Them boarders — they worry me. Me 
and Huldy set up till nigh eleven o’clock last night 
talking about ’em. She thinks maybe they stole 
the money, and I don’t know but they’re crazy, 
run away from an asylum or something. You’ve 
seen more city folks than I have, being around the 
hotel so. See what you think. 

“ ’Twas this way,” he went on; “I got a letter 
from the feller in New York that I sell cranberr 
to. He said a couple of friends of his wante 
come to a place in the country where ’twas 


THE MASTERS 


7 


Did I know of such a place round here? Well, 
course I wrote back that ’twas nice and quiet right 
at our house. There wa’n’t no lie in that, was 
there, Sol?” 

44 No,” I says. “ I should say ’twouldn’t be 
shaving the truth too close if you’d said there was 
more quietness than anything else down on the 
Neck road.” 

44 Well,” he goes on, not noticing the sarcasm, 
44 1 wrote and never got a word back. Me and 
Huldy had given up hearing. And then, yester- 
day morning, they come — both of ’em. Nice 
lookin’ young fellers as ever you see, they are; 
dressed just like the chaps in the clothes advertise- 
ments in the back of the magazines. The biggest 
one — they’re both half as tall as that mast, seems 
so — he took up his hat and says, kind of lazy and 
grand, like a steamboat capt’n : 

“ 1 Mr. Scudder? ’ he says. 

“ ‘ That’s my name,’ says I. I was kind of sus- 
picious; there’s been so many sewing-machine 
agents and such round town this spring. And yet 
I’d ought to have known he wa’n’t no sewing- 
machine agent. 

“ ‘ Ah! ’ he says. ‘ You’ve been expecting us 
then. Has the luggage come? ’ 


8 


MR. PRATT 


“ What in time did I know about his ‘ luggage,’ 
as he called it? 

“ ‘ No,’ says I. 4 ’Tain’t.’ 

“ ‘ Oh, well, never mind,’ he says, just as 
if a ton or two of baggage didn’t count any- 
way. ‘ Can you give us two sleeping rooms, 
two baths, a setting room, and a room for my 
man? ’ 

“ ‘ Two baths?’ says I. ‘Can’t you take a 
bath by yourself? You seem to be having lots of 
funny jokes with me. Would you mind saying 
what your name is and what you want ? ’ 

“ He looked me over sort of odd. * Beg par- 
don,’ he said. ‘ I thought you were expecting us. 
Here’s my card.’ 

“ I looked at it, and there was the name ‘ Ed- 
ward Van Brunt,’ printed on it. Then I begun 
to get my bearings, as you might say. 

Oh! ’I says. ‘ I see.’ 

“‘So glad, I’m sure,’ he says. ‘ Now can you 
give us the sleeping rooms, the baths, and the 
room for my man? ’ 

“ 4 Humph! ’ says I, lookin’ back at the house 
behind me; ‘if me and Huldy bunked in the hen- 
house and the chore boy in the cellar, maybe w r e 
dould accommodate you, that is, all but the baths. 


THE MASTERS 


9 

You’d have to take turns with the washtub for 
them,’ I says. 

“ He laughed. He was so everlasting cool 
about things that it sort of riled me up. 

44 4 Perhaps you’d like to hire the whole she- 
bang? ’ says I, sarcastic, pointing to the house. 

44 He looked at it. It looked sort of cheerful, 
with the syringa over the door and the morning- 
glories hiding where the whitewash was off. 

44 4 Good idea ! ’ he says. 4 1 would.’ 

44 Well, that was too many for me! I went 
into the house and fetched out Huldy Ann — she’s 
my wife. There ain’t many women in this town 
can beat her when it comes to managing and busi- 
ness, if I do say it. 

4 4 4 How long would you want the house for? ’ 
says Huldy, when I told her what was going on. 

4 4 4 A month,’ says Van Brunt, turning to the 
other city feller. 4 Hey, Martin? ’ T’other chap 
nodded. 

4 4 4 All right,’ says Van Brunt. 4 How much? ’ 

44 Thinks I, 4 I’ll scare you, my line feller.’ 
And so I says, 4 A month? Well, I don’t know. 
Maybe, to accommodate, I might let you have it 
for two hundred.’ I sort of edged off then, think- 
ing sure he’d be mad; but he wa’n’t — not him. 


10 


MR. PRATT 


“ ‘Two hundred it is,’ he says, and fished out a 
little blank book and one of them pocket pens. 

“ ‘ Name’s Scudder? ’ he asks. 

“ ‘ Yes,’ says I. ‘ Nathan Scudder. One T in 
Nathan.’ 

“ And I don’t know as you’ll believe it, Sol,” 
says Nate, finishing up, “ but that feller made out 
a check for two hundred and passed it over to me 
like ’twas a postage stamp. What do you think of 
that?” 

I didn’t know what to think of it. On general 
principles I’d say that a man who wanted to board 
with Nate and Huldy Ann Scudder was crazy any- 
how ; but of course these fellers didn’t know. 

“ It beats me, Nate,” I says. “ What do you 
think?” 

“ Blessed if I know ! ” says Scudder, with an- 
other of them long breaths. “ All I’m sure of is 
that they’re up home, with the parlor blinds open 
and the carpet fading, and me and Huldy’s living 
in the barn. She’s doing the cookin’ for ’em till 
this ‘ man ’ of theirs comes. Land knows what 
kind of a man he is, too. And that check was on a 
New York bank, and I’ve just been up to Trumet 
here with it and the cashier says ’twill be a week 
afore I know whether it’s good or not. And I 


THE MASTERS 


1 1 

can’t make out whether them two are thieves, or 
lunatics, or what. And Huldy can’t neither. I 
never was so worried in my life.” 

I kind of chuckled down inside. The idea of 
anybody’s skinning Nate Scudder was the nighest 
to the biter’s being bit of anything I ever come 
across. And just then I see my two passengers 
coming. 

“ Well, cheer up, Nate,” I says. “ Maybe you’ll 
get the reward, whether it’s lunatics or thieves. 
Only you want to look out and not be took up for 
an accomplice.” 

He fairly shriveled up when I said that, and I 
laughed to myself all the way out of Trumet har- 
bor. One thing I was sure of : them two New 
Yorkers must be queer birds and I wanted to 
see ’em. 

And the very next afternoon I did see ’em. They 
come down the Old Home pier together, walking 
as if they didn’t care a whole continental whether 
they ever got anywheres or not. One of ’em, the 
smallest one — he wa’n’t more’n six foot one and a 
ha’f — looked sort of sick, to me. He had a white 
face, and that kind of tired, don’t-care look in his 
eye; and the bigger one sort of ’tended to things 
for him. 


12 


MR. PRATT, 


“ Good morning,” says the big one — the Van 
Brunt one, I judged — cheerful enough. T’other 
chap said, “ Good morning,” too. 

“ Morning,” says I. 

“ Can you take us out sailing? ” 

“ Why — er — I guess so,” I says. “I don’t know 
why I can’t, if you feel like going. Course ” 

I hadn’t finished what I was going to say afore 
they was in the boat. * Now, generally speaking, 
there’s some bargaining to be done afore you take 
folks out for a three-dollar sail. You naturally 
expect it, you know — not so much from boarders 
as from towners, but still, some. But not for these 
two — no, sir! It was this powerful suddenness 
of theirs that hit me betwixt wind and water, same 
as it had Nate. Made me feel sort of like I’d 
missed the train. Stirred up my suspicions again, 
too. 

’Twas a nice day; one of them clear blue and 
green days that you get early in June. The water 
wa’n’t rugged, but just choppy enough to be pretty, 
and the breeze was about no’theast, givin’ us a fair 
run down the bay. 

“This is grand!” says the big fellow, as the 
Dora Bassett begun to feel her oats and lay down 
to her work. 


THE MASTERS 


13 


“ Caesar! Van,” said the other one; “ why do 
you bring me down to earth like that? Grand! 
Bleecker next ! ” He hollered out this last part in 
a kind of screechy sing-song. Then they both 
laughed. 

I looked at ’em. There wa’n’t nothing to laugh 
at, so far as I could see, and the “ Bleecker ” busi- 
ness didn’t appear to have # * either. 



They made two or three other speeches that 
sounded just as foolish. Thinks I, “ I wonder if 
Scudder’s right? ” They didn’t look like lunatics, 
but you can’t always tell. Old man Ebenezer 
Doane went to church of a Sunday morning just 
as sensible acting as a Second Adventer could be; 
but when he got home he fired the bean-pot at his 
wife, chased his children out door with a clam hoe, 
and they found him settin’ a-straddle of the hen- 
house singing “ Beulah Land ” to the chickens. 
These fellers might be harmless loons that had 
been farmed out, as you might say, by the asylum 
folks. There was that “ man ” that Nate said was 
coming. He might be their keeper. 

“ I understand you’ve got a friend coming,” 
says I, by way of ground bait. 

“ Friend? ” says the big one. “Friend? I don’t 
understand.” 


14 


MR. PRATT 


“ Scudder said you had another man coming to 
his house,” says I. 

He smiled. “ Oh, I see.” Then he smiled 
again, a queer lazy kind of a smile, like as if he was 
amused at himself or his thoughts. 

“ I don’t know that I should call him a friend, 
Mr.— er ” 

“ Pratt,” says I. “ Solomon Pratt.” 

u Thanks. No, I wouldn’t go so far as to call 
him a friend; and yet he’s not an enemy — not 
openly.” He smiled again, and the other chap — 
whose name I found out was Hartley — Martin 
Hartley — smiled too. 

“ He’s the man Van here belongs to,” ex- 
plained the Hartley one. They both smiled 
again. 

I kind of jumped, I guess, when he said that. 
It began to look as if the asylum idea was the right 
one, and this feller that was coming was the keeper. 

“ Hum,” says I, and nodded my head just as if 
the whole business was as plain as A B C. “ Do 
you belong to anybody? ” I says to Hartley. 

“ I did,” says he, “ but he’s doing time.” 

“ Doing time? ” says I. 

“ Yes,” says he, explaining, kind of impatient 
like. “ Up the river, you know.” 


THE MASTERS 


5 


I chewed over this for a minute, and all I could 
think of was that the feller must be in a clock fac- 
tory or a watchmaker’s or something. 

“ Watches? ” I asks. 

Hartley seemed to be too tired of life to want 
to answer, but his chum did it for him. 

“ No,” says he. “ I believe it was pearl studs 
on the showdown.” 

Well, this was crazy talk enough for anybody. 
I didn’t want to stir ’em up none — I’ve always 
heard that you had to be gentle with lunatics — so I 
went on, encouraging ’em like. 

“ Studs, hey? ” says I. 

“ Yes,” says he. “ He was a British beast, and 
Martin was all balled up in the Street at the time — 
away from his apartments a good deal — and the 
B. B. annexed everything in sight.” 

“Go ’long!” says I, for the sake of saying 
something. 

“ Beg pardon,” says he. 

“ Nothing,” says I; and we stopped talking. 

They seemed to enjoy the sail first rate, and 
acted as rational as could be, generally speaking. 
They didn’t know a topping lift from a center- 
board, so far as boat went, but that wa’n’t strange ; 
I’d seen plenty of boarders like that. But never 


16 MR. PRATT 

afore had I seen two that acted or talked like 
them. 

We got back to the wharf along about dusk, and 
I walked with ’em a piece on their way to Nate’s. 
I was keeping a sort of old bach hall just outside 
the village and so it wa’n’t much out of my way. 
They had me guessing and I wanted more time to 
work on the riddle. 

We cut across Sears’s meadow, and the frogs 
was beginning to squeal and the crickets to chirp. 
To me them early summer noises are as cheerful 
and restful as a teakettle singing or a cat purring. 
But, all at once, Hartley, the sick one, stopped 
and held up his hand. 

“ Heavens, Van ! ” he says. “ It sounds like 
the ticker,” and he said it so prayerful and sad. 

Van Brunt shook his head. “ Don’t it? ” says 
he. “ I can see the tape running off that tree. 
‘ Green Apples Preferred, 106 bid and 8 asked.’ 
Is there no escape ? ” he says. 

I left ’em on the hill by the Baptist burying 
ground. I watched ’em walking down the road, 
big and straight and handsome, and I pitied ’em 
from the bottom of my heart. 

“ Sol Pratt,” says I to myself, “ here’s a lesson 
for you. You’re old and homely and your bank 


THE MASTERS 


>7 


account is nothing, minus a good deal, divided by 
naught; but don’t you never complain again. 
S’pose you was good-looking and rich, but out of 
your head, like them two poor young chaps. Dear ! 
dear! ” 

And I thought about ’em and pitied ’em all that 
evening, while I was frying my herrings for sup- 
per. I hope I’ll get credit somewheres for all that 
pity. 


CHAPTER II 


THE MAN 

I SEE ’em pretty often during the next week. 
They used to loaf down to the landing of a 
morning, smoking cigars, and with their 
hands in their pockets. Crazy or not, there was 
a something about ’em that kind of got me; I 
own up I begun to like ’em, in spite of their top- 
hamper being out of gear. As a general run I 
don’t hanker for the average city boarder. He 
runs too much to yachting clothes and patron- 
izing. Neither the clothes nor the airs set well; 
kind of look like they was second-hand and made 
over for him by the folks at home. When one of 
that kind is out sailing with me, and begins to lord 
it and show off afore the girls, the Dora Bassett 
is pretty apt to ship some spray over the bow. A 
couple of gallons of salt water, sliced off a wave 
top and poured down the neck of one of them 
fellers is the best reducer I know of; shrinks his 
importance like ’twas a flannel shirt. 

But Nate Scudder’s private patients wa’n’t that 

18 


THE MAN 


19 

kind. Not that they wa’n’t dressed. Land sakes ! 
I don’t s’pose they wore the same vests two days 
running. But they looked like they was used to 
their clothes, not as if they’d just been introduced 
and didn’t feel to home in ’em. And they didn’t 
patronize none to speak of ; called me “ Skipper ” 
and “Sol” just as sociable as could be. And as for 
the girls, they never looked twice at any of the 
hotel ones. Them two skittish females that I took 
over to Trumet used to get in their way and beg 
pardon and giggle, hoisting flirtation signals, so 
to speak, but Van Brunt and Hartley wouldn’t 
even come up into the wind; just keep on their 
course like they was carrying the mail. ’Twas 
these two females that first named ’em “ The 
Heavenly Twins ’twas shortened later to “ The 
Heavenlies.” 

Every time I took the Heavenlies on a cruise the 
more certain I was that they were loons — harmless 
and good-natured, of course, but loons just the 
same. Most generally they carried a book along 
with ’em and read it out loud to each other. 
They’d read a spell and then stop and break out 
with, “ By Jove ! that’s so. He’s right, isn’t he? ” 
You’d think that book was a human almost, the 
way they went on about it. I’ve heard a minister 


20 


MR. PRATT 


do the same way over the Scriptures ; but this wa’n’t 
the Bible, the name of it was “ The Natural Life.” 
I borrowed it once to look at, but ’twas all foolish- 
ness to me; telling about money being a cuss, and 
such rot. I’ve been cussed considerable sence I 
first went to sea, but not by money — no, sir! 

But Van Brunt would read three or four fathom 
of rubbish out of “ The Natural,” and then heave 
to and say: 

“ Odd we didn’t think of that afore, Martin. 
It doesn’t count for much, does it? Well, we’re 
through with it now, thank God! Look at that 
sunset. Have a smoke, skipper? ” 

And then he’d pass over a cigar that had cost as 
much as ten cusses a box, if I’m any judge of 
tobacco. 

One night, just as we were coming into port, 
Van says to me: 

“ Sol,” he says. “ We may want you and the 
boat to-morrow. My man’ll let you know in the 
morning. Meanwhile just dodge the nautical 
bunch at the hotel, will you? ” 

I was a good deal shook up. I’d almost forgot 
that keeper. 

“Man?” says I. “Oh, yes, yes! I see. Is 
he here now? ” 


THE MAN 


21 


“ No; coming to-night, I believe. By-by. Just 
consider yourself engaged till you hear from 
us.” 

They walked off and left me thinking. Thinks 
I, “ It’s a fair bet that that keeper don’t let you 
two go boating by yourselves again.” 

So the next day about half-past nine, when I’d 
just about decided to let some of the boarders have 
the Dora Bassett , I looked up from my fish lines 
and here was a feller coming down the wharf. 

He was a kind of an exhibit for Wellmouth, as 
you might say. Leastways he was bran-new for 
me. Six foot two over all, I should judge, and 
about two foot in the beam. Cast a shadow like 
a rake handle. Dressed up fine and precise, and 
prim as a Sunday-school superintendent. He 
looked sort of gospelly, too, with his smooth upper 
lip and turned-down mouth, and little two-for-a- 
cent side whiskers at half mast on his cheeks. But 
his eyes was fishy. Thinks I, “ No sir-ee I I don’t 
want to subscribe to no Temperance Advocate, 
nor buy 4 The Life of Moses and the Ten Com- 
mandments,’ nor I don’t want to have my tintype 
took neither.” 

He stood still by the stringpiece of the wharf 
and looked me over, kind of grand but well-mean- 


22 MR. PRATT 

ing, same as the Prince of Wales might look at a 
hoptoad. 

“ ’Elio,” says he. 

“ Hello, yourself,” says I, keeping on with my 
work. 

“ Mr. Edward ’as ordered the boat for ’alf past 
eleven,” he says. 

“ I want to know,” says I. “ How’ll he have it 
—fried?” 

“ Beg pardon? ” says he. 

“ You’re welcome,” says I. I can stand being 
patronized, sometimes, if I’m paid for it, but I 
didn’t see this critter developing no cash symptoms. 

“ My good man,” he says; “you don’t under- 
stand me. I said that Mr. Edward ’ad ordered the 
boat for ’alf past eleven.” 

“ I know you did. And I asked if he’d have it 
fried.” 

He seemed to be turning this over in his mind. 
And with every turn he got more muddled. I’d 
concluded by this time that he wa’n’t a book agent. 
What he was though I couldn’t make out nor I 
didn’t much care. He riled me, this feller did. 

“ Look ’ere,” says he, after a minute. “ Is your 
name Pratt?” 

“ Yup,” I says. “ On Thursdays it is.” 


THE MAN 


23 


“Thursdays?” says he. “Thursdays? What 
— what is it on Fridays? ” 

“ Mister Pratt,” says I, pretty average brisk. 

He seemed to be more muddled than ever. He 
looked back towards the hotel and then at me 
again. I had a notion he was going to sing out 
for help. 

“ My man,” he says, again. “ My man ” 

“ Humph! ” I interrupted. “ Well, if I’m your 
man whose man are you? ” 

And, by time! he seemed to understand that ! 
“ I’m Mr. Edward Van Brunt’s man,” says he, 
“ and Mr. Edward ’as ordered the boat for 
’alf ” 

And then I begun to understand — or thought I 
did. ’Twas the keeper. Well, in some ways he 
looked his job. 

“O — oh! ” says I. “All right. Yes, yes. I 
heard you was coming, Mr. — Mr. ” 

“ ’Opper,” says he; “ James ’Opper.” 

“ Proud to know you, Mr. Opper,” says I, 
which was a lie, I’m afraid. 

“ Not Hopper,” he says. “ ’Opper.” 

“ Sure ! Opper’s what I said,” says I. 

He got red in the face. “ ’Opper,” he says. 
“ Haitch — o-p-p-e-r.” 


24 


MR. PRATT 


“ Oh, Hopper!” I says. 

u Of course. ’Opper,” he says. 

I felt as if I’d been sailing a race and had made 
a lap and got back to the starting buoy. 

“ All right,” says I. “ What’s an H or two be- 
tween friends? How’s your patients, Mr. Opper 
Hopper? ” 

u Look ’ere, my fine feller,” he says. “ You’re 
too fresh. For a ’a-penny I’d come down and put 
a ’ead on you.” 

And right then I give up the idea that he was a 
retired parson. Parsons don’t talk like that. 

“ You would? ” says I. “ Well, you go on put- 
ting ‘ ’eads ’ on the poor lunatics you have to take 
care of and don’t try any of your asylum games 
with me. ’Twould be safer for you and wouldn’t 
interfere with my work. What do you want? ” 

“ I’m Mr. Edward Van Brunt’s vally — ” he 
says — “’is man-servant; and ’e ’as ordered you j 
to ” 

“His man-servant!” I sung out, setting up 
straight. 

“Of course. Didn’t I says so? His vally; 
and ” 

Well, I’d made a mistake, I judged. If he was 
a servant he couldn’t be the keeper. I ca’lated 


THE MAN a 5 

*twas best to be a little more sociable. Besides, I 
was curious. 

“Humph! ” says I. “ I guess I’d ought to beg 
your pardon, Mr. Opper ” 

“ ’Opper! ” he fairly hollered it. 

“ All right. Never mind. Come on aboard 
and let’s talk it over.” 

So aboard he come, making a land-lubber’s job 
of it, and come to anchor on the bench in the 
cockpit, setting up as stiff and straight as if he’d 
swallowed a marlin-spike. Then we commenced 
to talk, me dropping a question every once in 
awhile, and him dropping h’s like he was feeding 
’em to the hens. 

“ What kind of a servant did you say you was? ” 
says I, breaking the ice. 

“ A vally, Mr. Edward’s vally.” 

“Vally, hey?” says I. “Vally! Hum! I 
want to know ! ” 

I guess he see I was out of soundings, so he con- 
descends to do some spelling for me. 

“ V-a-l-e-t,” says he. “ Vally.” 

“ Oh ! ” says I. “A vallet. Yes, yes; I see.” 

I knew what a vallet was — I’d read about ’em 
in the papers — but this feller’s calling it a “ vally ” 
put me off the course. He was nothing but a for- 


26 


MR. PRATT 


eigner, though, so I made allowances. I give him 
a cigar that I bought at the grocery store on the 
way down, and we lit up. Then he commenced to 
tell about himself and how he used to work for a 
lord once over in England. According to his tell 
England was next door to Paradise and the 
United States a little worse than the other place. 

“ Gawd forsaken ” was the best word he had for 
Yankeeland. 

“ I suppose you’ll quit when the keeper comes,” 
says I. 

“ Keeper? ” says he. “ W’at keeper? ” 

“ Why, the feller from the asylum. How long 
has your boss and his messmate been crazy?” I 
asks. 

“Crazy?” he says. “Crazy? W’at do you 
mean? ” 

“ Look here,” says I. “ You tell me straight. 
Ain’t Van Brunt and Hartley out of their heads? ” 

“ Out of their ’eads? ’Eavens, no! ” He was 
so upset that he couldn’t hardly speak for a minute. 
Then he commenced to tell about the Heavenlies, 
and ’twa’n’t long afore I begun to see that ’twas 
Nate Scudder and me that needed a keeper; we 
was the biggest loons in the crowd. 

Seems that the Twins was rich New Yorkers — 


THE MAN 


27 


the richest and high-tonedest kind. Both of ’em 
had money by the bucket and more being left to 
’em while you wait. They lived on some Avenue 
with a number to it and they done business in the 
“ Street,” meaning that they dickered in bonds and 
such things, I gathered. Also I gathered they 
didn’t have to work overtime. 

“ But, if they ain’t crazy what made ’em come 
down here to live? ” says I, “ at Nate Scudder’s? ” 

Well, that was a kind of poser, even for Mr. 
James Opper Hopper Know-it-All. He com- 
menced to tell about society and pink teas — I guess 
’twas pink ; might have been sky-blue though — and 
races and opera parties and stocks, and “ strenuous 
life ” and the land knows what. It seemed to sim- 
mer down finally to that book “ The Natural 
Life.” Seems there was a kind of craze around 
New York and the cities, stirred up by that book, 
to get clear of luxury and comfort and good times 
and so on, and get to living like poor folks. Liv- 
ing the “ Natural Life,” the valet called it. 

“ So? ” says I, thinking of how I had to scratch 
to keep body and soul together. “ I’ve been right 
in style all my days and didn’t know it. Hum! 
going cranberrying and fishing and clamming and 
taking gangs of summer folks out on seasick par- 


28 


MR. PRATT 


ties is the proper thing, hey? And your boss and 
his chum want to live simple? ” 

Yes, he said they wanted to live real simple. 

“ Well,” says I, “ if Huldy Ann Scudder cooks 
for ’em that’s the way they’ll live.” 

He went on with another rigmarole about how 
the Heavenlies had lived in New York. Cutting 
out everything about himself and that British lord 
• — which was two-thirds of the yarn — there was 
some stuff about a girl named Page that interested 
me. Seems she was the real thing in society, too. 
Had money and good looks and fine clothes — all 
the strenuous nuisances. And she was engaged 
to Hartley once, but they had a row or something 
and broke it off. And now she was engaged to 
Van Brunt. 

“ But, see here,” I says, puzzled. “ If she’s 
engaged to Van why ain’t he to home courting her 
instead of dissipating on baked beans and thin 
feather beds over to Scudder’s? Why ain’t he to 
home in New York getting ready to be married? ” 
Well, the marriage, so James said, was to be 
arranged later. Near as I could find out Van and 
this Agnes Page had mighty little to do with the 
marrying. ’Twas their folks that was fixing that 
up. Agnes herself had gone to Europe with her 


THE MAN 


29 


ma. When she was to home she was great on 
charity. She done settlement work, whatever that 
is, and her one idea in life was to feed ice cream 
to children that hankered for fishballs and brown 
bread. This wa’n’t exactly the way Lord James 
give it out, but ’twas about the sense of it. 

“ Yes, yes,” says I. “ But how does Hartley 
like chumming around with the feller that’s going 
to marry his old girl? ” 

It appeared that that was all right. Hartley 
and Van was chums; loved each other like brothers 
— or better. Little thing like a girl or two didn’t 
count. Hartley was kind of used up and blue and 
down on his luck and suffering from the Natural 
Life disease; he wanted to cut for simplicity and 
Nature. So Van, havin’ a touch of the Natural 
himself, come along to keep him company. 

“ But this Page girl? ” says I. “ How does she 
feel on the Natural Life question? ” 

“ Oh, she believes in it too,” says his Lordship. 
“ Only she’s more interested in ’er charity and 
’elping the poor and heducating ’em,” says he. 

I fetched a long breath. “ Well, Mr. Opper — 
Hopper I mean — ” I says, “ you can say what 
you want to, but I’ll still hang on to my first notion. 
/ think the whole crew is stark, raving crazy.” 


30 


MR. PRATT 


I’d noticed that he hadn’t been pulling at my 
cigar much — a good five-cent Bluebell cigar ’twas 
too. Now he put it down, kind of like ’twas 
loaded. 

“ My good feller,” he says. “ Would you mind 
if I tried one of me own weeds? ’Ave one your- 
self,” says he. 

I took the cigar he handed me. It was one of 
Van Brunt’s particular brand. 

“ Humph! ” thinks I, “ your bosses may be sim- 
pletons for the love of it, Brother James, but not 
you. No, sir-ee! You’re in it for the value of 
the manifest.” 

In another half hour or so the Heavenly Twins 
showed up alongside. And then ’twould have done 
you good to see that valet’s back get limber. He 
bowed and scraped and “ Sirred ” till you couldn’t 
rest. They spoke to him like he was a dog and he 
skipped around with his tail between his legs like 
he was one — a yellow one, at that. 

When we’d passed the point out comes that ever- 
lasting book and the Twins got at it. 

“ Van,” says Martin Hartley, setting up and 
taking notice; “the Natural Life for mine. I 
envy the lucky devils who’ve had it all their 
lives. » 


THE MAN 


3 


’Twa’n’t none of my affairs, but I shoved my oar 
in here — couldn’t help it. 

“ You fellers ain’t getting the real article — not 
yet,” says I. “ There’s a hotel over back of the 
village where the boarders get the ginuine simple 
life — no frills included,” I says. 

They was interested right off. 

“Where’s that, skipper?” says Van Brunt. 
M What’s its name? ” 

“ Well,” says I, “ folks round here call it the 
poorhouse.” 

Then they both laughed. Good nice fellers, as 
I said afore, even if they was crazy. 


CHAPTER III 


TOO MANY COOKS 

I T was a day or so after that that I see Nate 
Scudder again. I’d been out in the sloop 
with a parcel of boarders — they were begin- 
ning to get thicker at the Old Home now, same as 
the mosquitoes — and on my way home I met Nate 
driving down the Neck Road. He was in the 
carryall and I hailed him as he come abreast of 
me. 

“ Hello, Nate! ’ I says. “ Taking the air, are 
you? ” . 

He pulled up his horse — it didn’t take a hard 
pull — and, while the critter leaned up against the 
shafts and took a nap, Nate talked to me. It 
appeared that there’d been more or less trouble 
down his way. Huldy Ann and Lord James 
hadn’t agreed any too well. 

“ You see,” says Nate, taking a calico handker- 
chief out of his hat and swabbing his bald head 
with it, “ it’s that valet feller — he’s too stuck-up 
to live.” 


32 


TOO MANY COOKS 


33 


I wa’n’t going to fight with him on that point, 
so he went ahead with his yarn. 

“ He come parading out to the barn,” says Nate, 
“ and give out that he’d been appointed cook in 
Huldy Ann’s place. Well, she’d been sort of lay- 
ing herself out, as you might say, to please them 
two up at the house — giving ’em spider bread and 
dried apple pie for breakfast, and the like of that — 
and it riled her to be chucked overboard that way. 
So she got sort of sarcastic. That Opper man, 
he ” 

“ His name’s Hopper,” I says. 

“ He don’t call it so, then.” 

“ That’s all right. Him and I had a spell- 
ing match here t’other day and Hopper it is,” I 
says. 

“ Well, then, this Hopper feller he lorded it 
round, asking where the double biler was and 
complaining that he couldn’t cook steak without a 
charcoal fire, and so on. Huldy took him down, 
I tell you ! 

“ ‘ Charcoal your granny! ’ says she. 4 I’ve 
fried more steak than you’ve got hairs on your 
head, and a plain wood fire always done me,’ she 
says. 

“ He cooked that steak, and say! I’ll bet the 


34 


MR. PRATT 


Iron- Jawed Man I see once at a dime show up to 
Boston couldn’t have got away with it. Tough! 
Why, the pesky idiot never pounded it a bit ! How 
do you expect to get tender steak if you don’t pound 
it? Haw ! haw ! ” 

When he got through laughing he went to say 
that him and Huldy had decided to go over to her 
sister’s at Ostable for a visit. 

“ We’ve been intending to go for a good while,” 
he says. “ And now we can do it without its cost- 
ing much. Pay for the house goes on whether 
we’re there or not, and the railroad fare’ll be more 
than made up by the saving in our own grub. I’m 
a peaceable feller, anyhow,” says he, “ and there’d 
be no peace while Huldy and that Britisher was 
together.” 

“ Case of too many cooks spoiling the soup, 
hey? ” says I. 

“Soup!” he says. “Well, you wait a lit- 
tle spell. If they ain’t chasing around after a 
new cook inside of a week I’m a Jonah, that’s 
all.” 

He was right. Couple of days later I heard 
from Emmie T. that the Twins had hired Hannah 
Jane Purvis to do the cooking for ’em. Han- 
nah Jane’s late lamented had been cook on a 


TOO MANY COOKS 


35 


Banks boat when he was young, so I suppose she 
cal’lated she’d inherited the knack. But I had my 
doubts. 

I was getting real chummy with the Heavenlies 
by this time, so one afternoon I walked up to the 
Scudder place to see ’em. They were sprawled 
out on the piazza chairs with their feet on the rail- 
ing and they hailed me as friendly as if I was rich 
as they was, instead of being poorer than Job’s 
turkey. I noticed Lord James tiptoeing around in 
the parlor, so I naturally mentioned him. 

“Your valet man, here,” I says; “he wa’n’t 
quite to the skipper’s taste as cook, hey? ” 

They both laughed, Van Brunt with his big 
good-natured “ Ha, ha ! ” and Hartley with that 
quiet chuckle of his. 

“ James,” said Van, “ is a glittering success in 
the wardrobe, but he dislikes to hide his talents un- 
der a kitchen bushel.” 

“ James,” said Hartley, “ appears to apply the 
same methods to trousers and steak.” 

“ Presses both of ’em, don’t he? ” I says, think- 
ing of Scudder’s yarn. 

“ Flat as a board,” says Van. “ Besides which, 
this is supposed to be a pleasure cruise for Martin 
and me, and James serves with the cheerful dignity 




36 MR. PRATT 

of an undertaker. He’s too complex; we yearn 
for simplicity and rest.” 

I grinned. “ Well, you’ve got the simplicity 
with Hannah, ain’t you? ” I asked. “ I ain’t say- 
ing nothing about the rest.” 

Both of ’em. groaned. I knew Hannah Jane 
Purvis, and she had the name of talking the 
hinges off a barn door. 

“Lord!” says Van. “Let’s change the sub- 
ject. By the way, Martin; it’s odd that Agnes 
hasn’t written.” 

Hartley was setting out towards the front of 
the porch where the sun could get at him. Now he 
shifted back into the shadow of the vines. 

“ Is it time for a letter to reach here ? ” he asked. 

“ Why, yes. I should think so. She was to 
reach New York on the first and sail on that day. 
She would probably write on the steamer. It was 
a fast boat and, allowing that the letter came back 
immediately — well, I don’t know that it is time 
yet.” 

He began to whistle. I gathered that ’twas the 
Page girl he was talking about. The valet had 
told about her going on a trip to Europe. But it 
struck me that, for an engaged man, Van Brunt 
was the easiest in his mind of anybody ever I see. 


TOO MANY COOKS 


37 


I’ve never been engaged myself, but judging by 
them I’ve known who was, he’d ought to be shoot- 
ing telegrams to Europe faster than you could 
shake ’em out of a pepper box. 

Neither of ’em spoke for a minute. Then Hart- 
ley asked, quiet as usual, “ Have you written her, 
Van?” 

“ Oh, yes; dropped a line the other day, telling 
her we were safe and duly housed and so on. 
Whooped up the joys of the ‘ Natural ’ and begged 
her to * go thou and do likewise.’ Which she 
would like to do, probably, but which also — if I 
know her highly respected mamma — she won’t.” 

“Where did you address your letter?” Hart- 
ley asks, after a little. 

“ Liverpool, care of her usual hotel. She’ll get 
it all right — always provided she hasn’t already 
organized a settlement colony of small Hooligans 
in the Liverpool slums. But there ! Let’s forget 
morals and matrimony. Heigho! Wonder what’s 
doing in the Street? Not that I care a red.” 

They seemed to have forgot me altogether. But 
I was interested in their talk all the same, and I’ve 
tried to put it down just as I heard it. ’Twas queer 
talk, but they was queer folks, and I was learning 
how the big-bugs done their courting. From what 


MR. PRATT 


38 

I’d heard so far I liked the Wellmouth way full 
as well. 

The front gate clicked. Van Brunt looked 
up. “Great Scott!” says he, “it’s the phono- 
graph.” 

’Twas Hannah Jane Purvis coming home from 
the next house with a dishpan full of peas. Han- 
nah was a kind of scant patterned critter without 
much canvas on her poles and her sleeves most gen- 
erally rolled up. She had brindled hair clewed 
back so tight off her forehead that her eyes 
wouldn’t shut good, and the impression you got 
from the first look at her was that she was all 
square corners — not a round one in the lot. 

“ Well! ” says she, coming up into the wind in 
front of the piazza and looking at me hard. “ I 
do believe it’s Solomon Pratt. Why, what a stran- 
ger you be! I ain’t seen you for I don’t know 
when.” 

I didn’t know when either and I didn’t try to 
remember. “ Sufficient unto the day is the trouble 
belonging to it,” the Scriptures say, if I recollect 
it right, and ’twas enough for me that she’d seen 
me this time. She comes over, dishpan and all, 
and planks herself down on the steps right in front 
of Van Brunt’s chair. There ain’t nothing shy 


TOO MANY COOKS 


39 


or unfriendly about Hannah Jane; she’s the most 
folksy female I ever come across, and always 
was. 

“ My sakes ! ” says she, turning round to Van, 
“ I see Mr. Pratt come in here and I couldn’t make 
out who ’twas. Thinks I, i They’ve got company 
and I must get there quick.’ So back I put, and I 
don’t know as I’ve got a full measure of peas ’cause 
it seemed to me that some of ’em spilled off the top 
when Cap’n Poundberry was emptyin’ ’em in. I 
hope not, ’cause peas is high now. Not that it 
makes any difference to well-off folks like you, Mr. 
Van Brunt, but ” 

“ Hadn’t you better go back and pick ’em up? ” 
asks Van, solemn as an owl. 

“ Oh, land of love ! no. There wa’n’t enough 
for that. Besides I want to see Mr. Pratt. Well, 
Mr. Pratt,” says she. “I suppose you’re surprised 
enough to find me working out. Dear! dear! I 
don’t know what Jehiel — he that was my first hus- 
band — would have said; nor my second one 
neither. But there ! we can’t none of us never tel! 
what’s in store for us in this world, can we?” 

I made some sort of answer; don’t matter what. 
She went ahead lamenting over what a come-down 
’twas for her to work out. You’d think she’d been 


40 


MR . PRATT 


used to marble halls to hear her. She settles the 
dishpan between her knees and starts in shelling 
peas, talking a blue streak all the time. She was 
a whole sewing circle in herself, that woman. 

u Jehiel was such a quiet man,” she says, after 
a spell. “ He scarcely ever talked.” (Didn’t 
have a chance, thinks I to myself.) “When he 
died — did I ever tell you how Cap’n Samuels — my 
first husband as was — come to die, Mr. Hartley? ” 
says she. 

Hartley had took up the Natural Life book 
and was trying to read it. Now he looked up and 
says, mournful but resigned, “ No, Mrs. Purvis, 
I believe we have never had the pleasure.” 

“ The pleasure was wholly the Cap’n’s,” says 
Van Brunt under his breath. If Hannah Jane 
heard him she didn’t let it worry her. 

“Well,” she says, “ ’twas this way: Captain 
Jehiel — him that was my first husband — was the 
most regular man in his habits that ever was, I 
guess. Every Saturday night all the time we was 
married — and we was married eleven year, not 
counting the two after he was took sick — he al- 
ways had baked beans for supper. I used to say 
to him, 1 Jehiel,’ I used to say, ‘ ain’t you tired of 
baked beans? I should think you’d turn into 


TOO MANY. COOKS 41 

beans, you’re so fond of ’em.’ But he never did 
and ” 

She stopped for a second to get her breath. Van 
cut in quick. 

“That wasn’t the cause of his death, then?” 
he asks, very grave. 

“ Who— what?” 

“Turning into beans? Of course not. I be- 
lieve you said he didn’t turn.” 

“ I said he never got tired of ’em. Course he 
didn’t turn into ’em. Whoever heard of such a 
thing? Well, as I was saying; every Saturday 
night we had ’em, and one night — ’twas the last 
one, poor thing — ” She stopped to unfurl her 
handkerchief and mop her eyes. 

“ Pray go on, Mrs. Purvis,” says Van, very 
polite. “ You were saying ’twas the last bean ” 

“ I said ’twas his last well night . There was 
beans enough, land knows! Well, I had ’em on 
the table and he set down. 4 Hannah,’ says he, 4 1 
don’t feel like beans to-night.’ I looked at him. 
It wa’n’t because they wa’n’t good beans. I’m 
always as particular as can be about cooking beans. 
Always put such to soak over night on a Friday, 
and then Saturday morning I take ’em and put ’em 
in the bean-pot along with some molasses and a 


42 


MR. PRATT 


nice chunk of pork. You can’t be too particular 
about your pork. 4 Don’t,’ I used to say to the 
man that drove the butcher cart; ‘ don’t,’ says I, 

‘ give me nothing but fat pork. Might’s well 
have plain lard and be done with it. Give me,’ 
says I, 4 a streaked chunk; streak of lean and a 
streak of fat.’ Then I put ’em in the oven and 
bake ’em all day and by night they’re ready. So 
when Jehiel says to me, 4 Hannah, I don’t feel 
like beans,’ I set and looked at him.” 

44 Did he look like ’em? ” asks Van. 

Hannah Jane switched round on the step and 
stared at him. But he was as sober as a church 
and just running over with sympathy, seemed so, so 
she sniffed and went on. 

44 He looked sick ” she says, 44 and I could see 
that he was sick too. So I got him to bed and what 
a night I put in! Oh, the hot jugs to his feet! 
Oh, the running for the doctor! We had Dr. 
Blake here then, Mr. Pratt. You remember him, 
don’t you? Great big tall man with gray whis- 
kers. No, wait a minute. ’Twas Dr. White that 
had the whiskers; Dr. Blake was smooth-faced. 
No, seems to me he had a mustache. I remember 
he did because he was engaged to Emma Baker’s 
sister’s girl and she used to say that when she once 


TOO MANY COOKS 


43 


got him for good he’d have to raise more beard 
than that. She said a doctor without a beard was 
like a soft biled egg without — without — without 
something or ’nother in it. Strange I can’t think ! 
An egg without something in it ” 

“ Chicken, possibly,” suggests Van. 

“ No, indeed. Salt! that’s what ’twas. A soft 
biled egg without salt in it. Now you’d ought to 
be as careful about biling eggs as you had about 
anything else. W<ay some folks bile eggs is a sin 
and shame. I’ve et eggs so hard that you could 
build a stone wall out of ’em, seems so; and then 
again I’ve et ’em when I’ve actually had to drink 
’em. Now when I bile eggs I always — let me see; 
I wa’n’t speaking of eggs when I fust started. 
Where was I? ” 

“ You were telling us about beans, I believe, 
Mrs. Purvis,” purrs Van again, sweet and buttery 
as can be. “I seem to have a dim recollection of 
beans, Mrs. P.” 

“ Oh, yes, yes ! I was going on to tell of Jehiel’s 
sufferin’s, Mr. Van Brunt. If I could only begin 
to give you an idea of that poor critter’s agony. 
Why, he — who’s that at the back door?” 

’Twas the neighbor’s boy, as it turned out, come 
to borrow a cupful of sugar, but he took Hannah 


44 


MR. PRATT 


Jane away from us, which was a mercy. She 
dropped the dishpan and went inside. 

Van Brunt looked after her. “ Will some one 
please inform me,” says he, “ whether I’ve been 
at a clinic, or a funeral, or just a cooking-school 
session? ” 

“Humph!” says Hartley. “Unfortunate in- 
terruption. Now we shan’t learn what became of 
the long-suffering Jehiel.” 

“ Oh, he died,” says Van. “ I wanted to find 
out what became of those beans.” 

“ I understand now why they put 4 At Rest ’ on 
Jehiel’s gravestone,” I says. 

Hartley turned to me. “ Skipper,” he says, 
“ you mustn’t think that Van and I are altogether 
cold-blooded because we refuse to weep over the 
departed Samuels. The lady has cheered us with 
happy little memories of this kind ever since she 
agreed to demean herself and make 1 riz biscuit ’ 
at four-fifty per. She began with her cousin, who 
died of small-pox, and she’s worked down through 
the family till she’s got to her husband.” 

“ Yes,” says Van, “ and he’s only her first. We 
shall hear later how Number Two fell into a stone- 
crusher or was boiled in oil. Lord ! ” 

“ Hank Purvis had five brothers,” says I; “ and 


45 


TOO MANY COOKS 

they’ve all died within the last ten year. You’ve 
got more funerals coming to you.” 

It was quiet for a few minutes. Out back 
we could hear Hannah Jane laying into the neigh- 
bor’s boy because he tracked mud on the kitchen 
floor. 

“ It was no use,” says Van, decided. “ I refuse 
to renew my subscription to The Daily Morgue. 
All those in favor of parting with the Widow Pur- 
vis at once, immediate, P. D. Q., will say ‘ Aye.’ 
Contrary minded, ‘ No.’ It’s a vote. Hannah is 
erased. What shall we do, Martin — go back to 
James and dignity, or feed ourselves? ” 

Hartley seemed to be thinking. “ Skipper,” 
says he to me, “ you can cook. I — even I, the in- 
teresting invalid — can eat your chowder and like it 
and come back for more. Will you come and help 
us out? What do you say? ” 

Van Brunt sat up straight. “ Martin,” says 
he, “ you’re as comforting as the shadow of a great 
rock in a — in a — something or other. You’re a 
genius. Pratt, you’ve got to come here and live 
with us. We need thee every hour, as Mrs. P. 
sings at five A.M., which is her ungodly time for 
getting out of bed. It’s settled ; you’re coming.” 
“Well, now; hold on,” says I. “Some ways 


46 


MR. PRATT 


I’d like to, and, if you want plain cooking, why, I 
guess likely I can give it to you. But business is 
business and there’s my boat and my living for the 
summer. You’re here only a month, as I under- 
stand it, and ” 

That didn’t make no difference. I could fetch 
the Dora Bassett along too, Van said. Hartley 
explained that they intended to stay through the 
summer, anyhow, perhaps later. He went on to 
tell that he and his chum was what he called “re- 
deemed conventionalities,” or some such name, and 
that they intended to stay redeemed. They’d 
hitched horses and agreed to find the Natural 
in all its glory. And the Natural they was going 
to find if it took a thousand year. 

“ And while we’re giving you the story of our 
lives, skipper,” says Hartley, with one of his half 
smiles, “ I want to say right here that our present 
surroundings aren’t all that fancy painted ’em. 
They’re too much in the lime light.” This was 
just one of his crazy ways of saying things ; I was 
getting used to ’em a little by now. “ We’re too 
prominent,” he says. “The populace are too 
friendly and interested.” 

“ Also,” says Van, “ the select bunch of femi- 
nines from the hotel have taken to making our 


TOO MANY COOKS 


47 


front walk a sort of promenade. Martin and I are 
naturally shy; we pine for solitude. ,, 

There was more of this, but I managed to find 
out that what they wanted was a quieter place than 
Scudder’s. A place off by itself, where they could 
be as natural as a picked chicken. I agreed to try 
and help ’em find such a place. And I said, too, 
that I’d think about the cooking idea. Money 
didn’t seem to be no object — I could have my 
wages by the hod or barrelful — just as I see fit. 

“ Well,” says I, getting up to go. “ I’ll see. 
Let me sleep on it for a spell, same’s you fellers 
have done on Nate’s pin-feather beds. But I ain’t 
so sure about your staying all summer. How about 
that young lady friend of yours, Mr. Van Brunt? 
She may take a notion to send for you to introduce 
her to the King of Chiny or the Grand Panjandrum 
with the little round bottom on top. Then you’d 
have to pack up and cut your cable.” 

Van, he looked hard at me for a minute. I 
thought first he was mad at me for putting my oar 
in where it wa’n’t supposed to be. Then he 
laughed. “ Sol,” says he, “ that young lady and I 
are kindred spirits. For a year I’m natural and 
happy, and she can nurse her Hooligans and go on 
charity sprees. Then — well, then we fall back on 


48 


MR. PRATT 


our respected parents and wedded — er — bliss. 
Hey, Martin? ” 

Hartley, in the shadow of the vines, lit another 
cigar and nodded. But he didn’t say nothing. 

For the next three or four days I chased around 
trying to find a house and lot where them Heavenly 
lunatics could be natural. I located a couple of 
bully summer places, all trees and windmills and 
posy beds and hot and cold water and land knows 
what. But they wouldn’t do; they “smelled of 
coupons,” Van said. What they really wanted, 
or thought they wanted, was a state’s prison in a 
desert, I judged. 

For a week or ten days we kept the hunt up, but 
didn’t have no luck. Whenever I’d think I’d un- 
covered a promising outfit the Heavenlies would 
turn to and dump in a cargo of objections and bury 
it again. After five or six funerals of this kind I 
got sort of tired and quit. It got to be July and 
their month at Nate’s was ’most over. I was up 
there the evening of the Third and I happened to 
ask ’em if they wanted me and the sloop for the 
next day. There was to be a Fourth of July cele- 
bration over to Eastwich, and some of the boarders 
wanted to go and see the balloon and the races and 
the greased pig chase, and such like. If the Twins 


TOO MANY COOKS 


49 


didn’t care I’d take the job, I said. But they took 
a notion to go themselves. Van said ’twould be an 
excuse for me to give ’em another chowder, if 
nothing more. So, on the morning of the Fourth 
we started, me and Van Brunt and Hartley and 
Lord James, in the Dora Bassett . Talk about 
cruises! If I’d known — and yet out of it come — 
But there ! let me tell you about it. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE PIG RACE 

I DON’T cal’late that I ever had a better run 
down the bay than I done that morning. 
’Twas a fair wind, and a smooth sea, not the 
slick, greasy kind, but with little blue waves chas- 
ing each other and going “ Spat ! spat ! ” under the 
Dora Bassett’ s quarter as she danced over ’em. 
And that’s just what she did — dance. There 
wa’n’t any hog-wallowing for her; she just picked 
up her skirts, so to speak, and tripped along — 
towing the little landing skiff astern of her — like 
a sixteen-year-old girl going to a surprise party. 

An early July morning on the bay down our way 
is good enough for yours truly, Solomon Pratt. 
Take it with the wind and \ ater like I’ve said; 
with the salt smell from the marshes drifting out 
from the shore, mixed up with the smell of the 
pitch-pines on the bluffs, and me in the stern of a 
good boat with the tiller in my hand and a pipe in 
my face — well, all right! That’s my natural life; 
and I don’t need no book to tell me so, neither. 


THE PIG RACE 


5 


The Heavenlies enjoyed it, and they’d ought to. 
’Twas clear then, though it got hazy over to the 
east’ard later on. But then, as I say, ’twas clear, 
and you could see the schooners strung out on the 
skyline, some full up, with their sails shining white 
in the sun, and others down over the edge, with 
only their tops’ls showing. Far off, but dead ahead, 
just as if somebody had dipped their finger in the 
bluing bottle and smouched it along the bottom of 
the sky, was the Wapatomac shore, and away aft, 
right over the stern, was the Trumet lighthouse, 
like a white chalk mark on a yellow fence, the fence 
being the high sand bank behind it. 

The Twins laid back and soaked in the scenery. 
They unbuttoned their jackets and took long 
breaths. They actually forgot to smoke, which was 
a sort of miracle, as you might say, and even 
Hartley, who had been bluer than a spoiled 
mackerel all the morning, braced up and got real 
chipper. By and by they resurrected that book of 
theirs and had what you might call a Natural Life 
drunk. I never see printing that went to a person’s 
head the way that book seemed to go to theirs. I 
judged ’twas kind of light and gassy reading and 
naturally riz and filled the empty places same as 
you’d fill a balloon. 


5 ^ 


MR. PRATT 


Everybody was happy but Lord James, and I 
could see that he wa’n’t easy in his mind. He set 
about amidships of the cockpit and hung onto the 
thwart with both hands, like he was afraid ’twould 
bust loose and leave him adrift. If the Dora Bas- 
sett had struck a derelict or something and gone 
down sudden I’ll bet they’d have dredged up that 
Hopper valet and the thwart together. And then 
they’d have had to pry ’em apart. His Lordship 
wa’n’t used to water, unless ’twas to mix with some- 
thing else. 

By and by Hartley shoves both hands into his 
pockets, tilts his hat back and begins to sing. More 
effects of the Natural Life spree, I suppose, but 
’twas bully good singing. Might have been saying 
most anything, calling me a short lobster for what 
I know, ’cause ’twas some foreigner’s lingo, but the 
noise was all right even if I did have to take 
chances on the words. I cal’late to know music 
when I hear it. 

“Good!” says Van, when his chum stopped. 
“ Martin, you’re better already. I haven’t heard 
you sing for two years or more. The last time was 
at the Delanceys’ 1 At Home.’ Do you remember 
the Dowager and ‘ My daughter ’ ? Heavens ! 
and ‘ My daughter’s ’ piano playing ! Agnes told 


THE PIG RACE 


53 


the Dowager that she had never heard anything 
like it. You and she were together, you know. 
Give us another verse.” 

But Martin wouldn’t. Shut up like a clam and 
reached into his pocket for a cigar. 

“That was A No. i, Mr. Hartley,” says I. 
“ I wish you could hear Solon Bassett play the 
fiddle; you’d appreciate it.” 

Van he roared and even Hartley managed to 
smile. As for Lord James he looked at me like I’d 
trod on the Queen’s corns. 

Blessed if I could see what there was funny 
about it. Solon can play like an Injun. Why, I’ve 
seen him bust two strings at a Thanksgiving ball 
and then play u Mrs. McLeod’s Reel ” — you 
know, “ Buckshee, nanny-goat, brown bread and 
beans ” — on t’other two, till there wa’n’t a still 
foot in the hall. 

We made Eastwich Port about noon and had 
dinner. I cooked up a kettle of chowder — fetched 
the clams along with me from home — and ’twould 
have done you good to see the Heavenlies lay into 
it. Lord James he skipped around like a hopper- 
grass in a hot skillet, fetching glasses and laying 
out nine or ten different kind of forks and spoons 
side of each plate, and opening wine bottles, and 


54 


MR. PRATT 


I don’t know what all. When he hove in sight of 
the wharf that morning he was toting a basket 
pretty nigh as big as he was. I asked him what it 
was. 

“ Why, the ’amper,” says he. 

“ The which? ” says I. 

“ The lunch ’amper, of course,” he says. “ The 
’amper for the heatables.” 

Well, I wondered then what in the nation was in 
it, for ’twas heavier than lead. I remember that 
the heft of it made me ask him if he’d fetched 
along some of the late Hannah Jane’s left-over riz 
biscuit. But now I see why ’twas heavy. There 
was enough dishes and truck for ten men and the 
cook in that basket. We had my chowder and 
four kinds of crackers with it, and chicken and 
asparagus, and nine sorts of pickles, and canned 
plum pudding with sass, and coffee and good loud 
healthy cheese, and red wine and champagne. 
When I’d hoisted in enough of everything so my 
hatches wouldn’t shut tight, and was pulling on 
one of the Twins’ cigars, I says to Van 

“ Mr. Van Brunt,” says I, “ is this part of what 
you call the Natural Life? ” 

“ You bet, skipper! ” says he. He hadn’t fin- 
ished the chowder end of the layout yet. 


THE PIG RACE 


55 


Well, I heaved a sigh. ’Twas kind of wwnatural 
to me, having come on me all to once; but I 
cal’lated I could get used to it in time without shed- 
ding no tears. Didn’t want to get used to it too 
quick, neither; I wanted the novelty to linger 
along, as you might say. 

When the dinner was over — the Heavenlies was 
well enough acquainted with the family to nick- 
name it “lunch ” — I started in to help his lordship 
wash dishes. The Twins sprawled themselves un- 
der a couple of pine trees and blew smoke rings. 

“ Hurry up there, messmate,” says I to the 
valet; “ I want to get through time enough to run 
up to the fair grounds and see that greased pig 
race.” 

Hartley had been keeping so still I cal’lated he 
was dropping off to sleep, but it seems he wa’n’t. 
He set up, stretched, and got to his feet. 

“ I’ll go with you, skipper,” says he. “ Might 
as well do that as anything. I’ve never seen a 
greased pig race. They don’t have ’em on the 
Street.” 

“ Chase nothing but lambs there,” drawls Van 
Brunt, lazy, and with his eyes half shut. Then 
he turned over and looked at his chum. 

“Great Caesar! Martin,” he says, “you don’t 


MR. PRATT 


56 

mean to tell me that you’re going up into that 
crowd of hayseeds to hang over a fence and watch 
some one run , do you? Why any one on God’s 
earth should want to run,” he says, “ when they 
can keep still, is beyond me ; and why you, of all 
men, should want to watch ’em do it — that’s worse 
yet. Come here and be natural and decent.” 

But Hartley wouldn’t do it. His blue streak 
seemed to have struck in again and he was kicking 
the sand, nervous-like, with his foot. 

“ Come on, Van,” he says. “ I want the walk.” 

“ Not much,” says Van. “ Walking’s almost as 
bad as running. I’ll be here when you get back.” 
And he stretched out on the pine needles again. 

It may be that Hartley did want that walk, 
same as he said, but he didn’t seem to get much fun 
out of it. Went pounding along, his cigar tipped 
up to the visor of his cap, and his eyes staring at 
the ground all the time. And he never spoke two 
words till we got to the fair grounds. 

There was a dickens of a crowd, five or six hun- 
dred folks, I should think, and more coming all the 
time. Everybody that could come had borrowed 
the horses and carryalls of them that couldn’t and 
had brought their wives and mothers-in-law and 
their children’s children unto the third and fourth 


THE PIG RACE 


57 


generation. There was considerable many sum- 
mer folks — not so many as there is at the cattle 
show in August — but a good many, just the same. 
I counted five automobiles, and I see the Barry 
folks from Trumet riding round in their four- 
horse coach and putting on airs enough to make 
’em lop-sided. 

Hartley gave one look around at the gang and 
his nose turned up to twelve o’clock. 

“ Gad! ” says he, “ this, or something like it, is 
what I’ve been trying to get away from. Come on, 
Sol. Let’s go back to the boat.” 

But I hadn’t seen so many shows as he had and I 
wanted to stay. 

“ You wait a spell, Mr. Hartley,” says I. 
“ Let’s cruise round a little first.” 

So we went shoving along through the crowd, 
getting our toes tramped on and dodging peddlers 
and such like every other minute. There was the 
“ test your strength ” machine and the merry-go- 
round and the “ ossified man ” in a tent: “ Walk 
right up, gents, and cast your eyes on the greatest 
marvel of the age all alive and solid stone only 
two nickels a dime ten cents,” and all the rest 
of it. Pretty soon we come to where the feller was 
selling the E Plurihus Unum candy — red, white 


MR. PRATT 


58 

and blue, and a slab as big as a brick for a 
dime. 

Hartley stopped and stares at it. 

“ For heaven’s sake ! ” says he. “ What do they 
do with that? ” 

“ Do with it? ” says I. “ Eat it, of course.” 

“ No? ” he says. “ Not really? ” 

M Humph! ” I says. u You just wait a shake.” 

There was a little red-headed youngster scooting 
in and out among the folks’ knees and I caught him 
by the shoulder. “ Hi, Andrew Jackson ! ” says I. 
“ Want some candy? ” 

He looked up at me as pert and sassy as a black- 
bird on a scarecrow’s shoulder. 

“ Bet your natural ! ” says he. I jumped. 

“ Lord ! ” says I ; “ I cal’late he knows you.” 

Hartley smiled. “ How do they sell that — 
that Portland cement?” says he. “Give me 
some,” he says, handing a half dollar to the feller 
behind the oil-cloth counter. The man chiseled 
off enough for a fair-sized tombstone and handed 
it out. Hartley passed it to the boy. He bit off 
a hunk that made him look like he had the mumps 
all on one side, and commenced to crunch it. 

“ There ! ” says I. “ That’s proof enough, 
ain’t it?” 


THE PIG RACE 


59 


But he wa’n’t satisfied. “ Wait a minute,” says 
he. “ I want to see what it does to him.” 

Well, it didn’t do nothing, apparently, except 
to make the little shaver’s jaws sound like a rock 
crusher, so we went on. By and by we come to the 
fence alongside of the place where they had the 
races. The sack race was on, half a dozen fellers 
hopping around tied up in meal bags, and we see 
that. Then Hartley was for going home again, 
but I managed to hold him. The greased pig was 
the next number on the dance order, and I wanted 
to see it. 

Major Philander Phinney, he’s chairman of the 
Eastwich selectmen and pretty nigh half as big as 
he thinks he is; he stood on tip-toe on the judge’s 
stand and bellered that the greased pig contest was 
open to boys under fifteen, and that the one that 
caught the pig and hung on to it would get five 
dollars. In less than three shakes of a herring’s 
hind leg there was boys enough on that field to 
start a reform school. They ranged all the way 
from little chaps who ought to have been home 
cutting their milk teeth to “ boys ” that had yellow 
fuzz on their chins and a plug of chewing tobacco 
in their pants’ pocket. They fetched in the pig 
shut up in a box with laths over the top. He was 


6o 


MR. PRATT 


little and black and all shining with grease. Then 
they stretched a rope across one end of the race 
field and lined up the pig chasers behind it. 

“ Hello !” says Hartley, “there’s our Port- 
land cement youngster. He’ll never run with that 
marble quarry inside of him.” 

Sure enough, there was the boy that had tackled 
the candy. I could see his red head blazing like 
a lightning bug alongside of a six-foot infant with 
overalls and a promising crop of side whiskers. 
Next thing I knew the starter — Issachar Tiddit, 
’twas — he opens the lid to the pig box and hollers 
“ Go!” 

The line dropped. That little lone pig see 
twenty odd pair of hands shooting towards him, 
and he fetched a yell like a tugboat whistle and put 
down the field, with the whole crew behind him. 
The crowd got on tiptoe and stretched their necks 
to see. Everybody hollered and hurrahed and 
“ haw, hawed.” 

Now I’ve been calling the place where they had 
the races and so on a field. Well, twa’n’t really 
a field, but just part of the course where they had 
trotting matches on cattle show days. There was 
a fence on each side of it and across the ends of 
the section they was using there was ropes 


THE PIG RACE 


61 


stretched. Back of the fences was the crowd on 
foot, and back of the ropes was more of ’em, but 
behind these ropes likewise was lots of horses and 
wagons and carry-alls and such. Every wagon was 
piled full of people and amongst ’em I could see the 
Barry coach, with the four gray steppers prancing 
up and down in front of it and old Commodore 
Barry and his son on the front seat with the women 
folks behind. 

Well, when that pig started he made a straight 
course for the lower end of the field, but the sight 
of the horses and all scared him, I guess, and he 
jibed and back he come again. Half a dozen of 
the pig chasers — them that was nearest to him 
when he come about — ran into each other and 
piled up in a heap, squirming like an eel-pot. 
They got up in a jiffy and started over again, 
meeting the gang that was coming back on the 
second lap. 

By the time that pig had made three laps round 
that course he was a candidate for the hogs’ lunatic 
asylum. Twice he’d been grabbed, once by the 
ears and once by a leg, but his liveliness and the 
grease had got him clear. About half of the boys 
had given up the job, and was making for harbor 
behind the fence; covered with sand and grease, 


62 


MR. PRATT 


they was, and red and ashamed. The crowd was 
pretty nigh as crazy as the pig, only with joy. 
Even Hartley was laughing out loud — first time 
I’d ever heard him. 

That little chap with the red hair had been right 
up with the mourners till the third round ; then he 
was stood on his head in the scuffle and left behind 
down by the ropes in front of where the Barrys 
was. The rest of the chasers were scattered around 
the other end of the field, with the pig doing the 
grand right and left in and out amongst their legs. 
One of the boys — that big lanky one whose cheeks 
needed mowing — made a flying jump and dove 
head first right on top of the critter’s shiny black 
back. In a shake he was the underpinning, so to 
speak, of a sort of monument of boys, all fighting 
like dogs over a woodchuck. 

Next thing I knew the pig shot out from under- 
neath the pile same as if he’d been fired out of a 
cannon. He was squealing when he begun to fly 
and squealing when he lit, but his running tackle 
hadn’t been hurt any. Down the field he went and 
the only one of the chasers in front of him was that 
little red head. He makes a grab, misses, and the 
pig keeps straight on, right into the crowd of men 
and horses and carriages. 


THE PIG RACE 


63 


“ Look out ! ” yells everybody. “ Let him go ! ” 
But that little shaver wa’n’t built that way. Under 
the ropes he dives, right where the jam of wheels 
and hoofs was thickest. The Barry coach horses 
rared up and jumped and backed. You could hear 
wheels grinding and men yelling and women 
streaming. 

I was one of the first over that fence, but, 
quick as I was, that Hartley invalid was quicker. 
As a general thing he moved like ’twas hardly 
worth while to drag one foot after the other; but 
now he flew. I could see his big shoulders shoving 
folks over like they was ninepins. Under the ropes 
he went and in where the tangle was the worst. 
And then it closed up into a screeching, kicking 
whirlpool like. Down he went and I lost sight of 
him. 

Everybody on the grounds was crazy, but I 
cal’late I was the worst Bedlamite of the lot. 
Somehow I felt responsible. ’Twas me that told 
about the Fourth of July doings first and got him 
over there. ’Twas me that coaxed him into staying 
for the consarned pig business. And I kind of felt 
that I was his guardian, as you might say, now that 
Van Brunt wa’n’t along. Yes, and by ginger, I 
liked him ! Course I thought of the poor little boy, 


64 MR. PRATT 

too, but I’m free to say ’twas Hartley that I 
thought of most. 

For the doings of the next two or three minutes 
you’ll have to ask somebody else. All’s I remember 
real well is catching hold of Issachar Tidditt’s 
Sunday cutaway and ripping it from main truck 
to keelson. You see, Issachar was trying to back 
out of the tangle and I was diving in. Next 
thing I’m sure of is hanging onto the bridle of 
one of the Barry horses and playing snap the 
whip with my feet, up and down and over and 
under. 

She cleared up some finally and there was a ring 
of folks jamming and pushing and climbing be- 
tween wheels and under wagon bodies, and in the 
middle of the ring was Hartley, kneeling on the 
ground and looking pretty middling white and sick, 
with a dripping cut over his eye, and with that 
little shaver’s red head in his lap. And old Doc 
Bailey was there, but how or when he come I don’t 
know. Yes, me and the pig was there, too, but the 
critter was out of commission, being dead, and I 
was too busy to think where I was. 

“ How is he, doctor? ” asked Hartley anxious. 

The Doc didn’t answer for a minute or so; he 
was bending over the boy, sponging and swabbing 


THE PIG RACE 


65 


like all possessed. Poor little chap; he looked 
white and pitiful enough, stretched out there 
amongst that crowd of strangers and not a soul of 
his own folks around to look out for him. And he 
was such a gritty little mite. I looked at him; 
chalk white he was, and still, with his eyes shut and 
his breath coming kind of short and jerky. And — 
well, my breath got jerky, too. 

“ How is he? ” says Hartley again. 

Just as he said it the boy stirs and begins to 
breathe more regular. The doctor seemed to feel 
better. 

“ He’ll come round all right now,” says the Doc. 
“ ’Twas the kick that knocked him out. The pig 
got the worst of it and that saved him. There are 
no bones broken. But he’d have been trampled to 
death afterwards if it hadn’t been for you, sir. 
Better let me fix up that cut.” 

But the Twin shook his head kind of impatient. 
“ ’Tend to the boy,” he says. So the doctor went 
on with his sponging and swabbing and pretty soon 
the youngster opens his eyes. 

“ Did I get him? ” says he. 

“ What’s that? ” asked the Doc, stooping over. 

“ Did I get the pig? Is the fiver cornin’ to me? ” 

Well, you’d ought to have heard the crowd 


66 


MR. PRATT 


laugh. Somebody sings out, “ Three cheers for 
the kid,” and they give ’em with a whoop. 

“What’s the matter with youse?” says the 
youngster, setting up and looking around, dizzy 
like. “ Aw, cut it out ! ” he says, when they begun 
to holler some more. “ Did I get the pig? ” 

“ You bet you did,” says the doctor, laughing. 
“ You’re a spunky little rooster. Whose boy are 
you, anyway? Belong in Eastwich? ” 

“ Naw,” says the little feller, like he was plumb 
disgusted. “ N’York.” 

Hartley smiled. “ A brother outcast,” says he, 
looking up at me. 

Major Phinney had been shoving through the 
crowd and now he was in the front rank, where, so 
they tell me, he used to be in war time — after the 
fighting was over. 

“ He’s one of them Fresh Air boys,” says the 
Major, puffing, but pompous. “ There’s a sum- 
mer school of ’em been started just outside the 
town here. Couple of New York women brought 
the tribe down last week. This one’s one.” 

Little red head turned to Hartley. “ Say,” 
says he, “ don’t you tell her.” 

“ Tell who? ” says Martin. 

“ The teacher. Miss Agony.” 


THE PIG RACE 


67 


“Miss which: f” 

And just then here comes Issachar, his cutaway 
hanging graceful and ornamental from the collar, 
and piloting a mighty pretty and stylish young 
woman to the front. She breaks loose from him 
and runs for’ard and flops down on her knees. 

“Why, Dennis! Why, Dennis!” she says. 
“ How could you run away and behave like this? 
Are you hurt? Is he ” 

She looks up at Hartley as she begins to ask the 
last question. And he was staring at her as white 
as a sheet of paper. 

“ Why, Agnes! ” he says. And she went white, 
too, and then red. “ Oh! ” says she. And then 
“ Oh ! ” again. “ Oh, Martin! ” 


CHAPTER V 


THE CRUISE OF THE “DORA BASSETT” 

A FTER that there was a kind of tableau, 
same as them they have at church soci- 
ables. Here was Hartley staring at the 
young woman, and the young woman staring at 
him, and the boy staring at both of ’em, and me 
staring at the three, and the crowd around doing 
grand double-back-action staring at the whole of 
us. Then the party broke up, as you might say. 

Hartley, red as a beet now, got up and bowed. 
The young woman got up too and held out her 
hand in a doubting sort of way. But afore he 
could take it, she seemed to remember something, 
or changed her mind, for she dropped the hand 
and turned to the boy, who was on his feet by this 
time looking down at the relics of his clothes. 
And between grease and sand and dirt and rags 
they made a ruin that was worth looking at — made 
you think of a rubbish pile with a red danger lan- 
tern on top. 


68 


CRUISE OF THE <( DORA BASSETT” 69 

“ You naughty boy! ” says she. “ How could 
you do so? If you knew how frightened Miss 
Talford and I have been. Are you hurt, dear? ” 

“ Naw,” says the dear, brisk and disgusted. 
“ Sure I ain’t.” 

The young woman fidgeted around him, petting 
and “ pooring ” him and pinning him together, so 
to speak. Hartley fidgeted too, not seeming to 
have his bearings at all. He acted to me like he 
wished he was ten thousand miles away; and yet 
I cal’late he didn’t really wish it neither. The 
doctor and Major Phinney were fussing around 
and the crowd kept getting bigger and closing in. 

“ If you’ll excuse me, Miss,” says I, interfer- 
ing as usual where ’twas none of my affairs, “ I 
think perhaps ’twould be a good idea if we went 
somewheres where ’twan’t so popular. Maybe we 
might go into one of the rooms at the hall or 
somewheres.” 

“ Why, of course ! ” says Hartley, grabbing at 
the notion like ’twas a rope I’d thrown out to him. 
“ We’ll go to the hall. Ag — Miss Page, let me 
present my friend, Mr. Solomon Pratt.” 

So ’twas the Page girl, after all. I’d guessed 
as much, though how she come to be in Eastwich 
when she’d ought to have been in Europe was 


70 


MR. PRATT 


more’n I could make out. She looked up at me 
and reached out her little hand with a kid glove on 
it. Likewise she smiled — not with her mouth 
alone, same as an undertaker meeting the relatives 
of the departed, but with her eyes too. ’Twas 
the right kind of a smile. I’m vaccinated and 
not subject to women folks as a rule, but I’d have 
done considerable to get a deckload of them 
smiles. 

“ I’m very glad to know you, Mr. Pratt,” says 
she, just as though she meant it. And we shook 
hands — really shook ’em. 

Afore I could get over that shake and smile 
enough to be sensible, Major Philander shoved 
her arm into his and headed for the hall. Drat 
his figurehead! You never could beat that old 
image when there was a pretty woman around. 
Hartley looked kind of set back like. Then he 
takes the boy by the hand and falls into the 
Major’s wake. Me and the doctor trailed along 
behind. 

The Doc kept talking about what a brave thing 
the Twin’s diving under the horses was, but I 
didn’t hear more than half of it. I was watching 
the Page girl’s hat and thinking how much pret- 
tier ’twas than the ones them boarder girls at the 


CRUISE OF THE " DORA BASSETT " 7 . 

hotel wore. And yet there wa’n’t a quarter so 
many feathers and ribbons and doodads on it. 

The little chap was chirping up to Hartley all 
the way. What worried him was when he was 
going to get his five dollars. Martin told him 
he’d get it all right. He’d advance it himself and 
collect it afterwards. 

“What’s your name, son?” says he to the 
youngster. 

“ Denny,” says the boy. 

“ Denny? Dennis, you mean? Dennis what? ” 
u Aw, I don’t know. Plain Denny, I guess.” 
“ Where do you live in New York? ” 

“ Over around Cherry Street most of the time. 
Me and the old man used to hang out in the back 
room of Mike Donahue’s place on Mott Street 
till he got sent up. Then I got to sellin’ papers 
and doin’ shines and things. Sometimes I’d take a 
shy at the Newsboys’ Home nights. That’s where 
Miss Agony — Miss Page, I mean — found me. 
I’m one of the Fresh Air kids over to her place.” 
“ Many more like you over there? ” 

“Sure! nine or ten of us; girls and all. We 
been here a week now. I skinned out of the win- 
der this mornin’ and hoofed it over here. Wanted 
to see the show. Gee! what a gang of jays! 


72 MR. PRATT 

You’re the guy what put up the candy for me, 
ain’t you? ” 

“ Shouldn’t wonder. Do you like your 
teacher? ” 

“ Bet your life. She’s a peach. So’s the other 
one; Miss Talford her name is.” 

“ Humph! What do they call you over on the 
East Side when you’re at home? ” 

“ Redny,” says the little shaver. 

Hartley looked down at him and smiled one of 
his quiet grins. 

“Bully for you, Redny!” says he. “You’re 
a brick.” 

We got through the crowd and into the hall 
finally. Shutting the door was a job. The folks 
outside seemed to think they’d been cheated. I’d 
like to have got rid of Philander, but you couldn’t 
do that without a block and tackle; he stuck to 
Miss Page like a kedge anchor to mud bottom. 
The doctor was putting a strip of sticking plaster 
on Hartley’s forehead. The cut wa’n’t nothing 
but a scratch, I’m glad to say. 

After a spell I see my chance and I cornered 
the Major and commenced to talk politics. He 
was hankering for the county representative nomi- 
nation and I knew his soft spot. Hartley and the 


CRUISE OF THE “DORA BASSETT ” 73 

Page girl got together then, but they didn’t seem 
to know what to say. 

I heard her explaining that she hadn’t gone to 
Europe at all. Her ma had been took sick; noth- 
ing to speak of, I judged, spell of “ nerves ” or 
the like of that. So Agnes and her chum, this 
Margaret Talford, had seen the chance they’d 
been waiting for and had got their poor children 
tribe together and come down and took the 
Lathrop place at South Eastwich. Seems Miss 
Talford had hired it afore, intending to go the 
Fresh Air v’yage alone, long’s she couldn’t get 
Agnes to go it with her. 

“But how is it that you’re here?” says she. 
“ I thought you were at the mountains.” 

Hartley explained that, at the last moment, 
he had decided to try the seashore. He was at 
Wellmouth for the present, he said. 

“ But you should have known I was here,” she 
says. “ I wrote to — to Ed, of course — before I 
left the city. Oh, I see ! I sent the letter to your 
Adirondack address. But it should have been 
forwarded.” 

Elartley stammered a little, but he said quiet 
that he was afraid perhaps Van Brunt hadn’t 
thought to send word to have his mail forwarded. 


74 


MR. PRATT 


“ I see,” she says. u That’s like Ed.” 

Martin seemed to think ’twas too, but all he 
said was, “ He’s written you very faithfully. His 
letters, of course, have gone to Liverpool.” 

Well, that was about all. We had to be going. 
I said good-by and we started for the door. Miss 
Page came over and held out her hand. 

“ Mr. Hartley,” says she, “ I want to thank you 
for saving Dennis; Major Phinney told me about 
it. It was brave. And I’m glad that you’re not 
hurt.” 

She was pretty nervous, but a good deal less 
flustered than he was when he took her hand. 

“ It was nothing, of course,” he says, hurried 
like. “ That youngster was worth picking up. 
Good morning, Miss Page.” 

He stopped a second to say something about 
Van Brunt no doubt coming over to see her in a 
day or so. And then we left the hall and headed 
for the street. 

We walked along pretty brisk for a ways, 
neither of us saying much of anything. Whatever 
there was I cal’late I said. By and by we come to 
the railroad crossing. And here Hartley stops 
short. 

“ Sol,” says he, “ I believe I’ll go back by 


CRUISE OF THE “DORA BASSETT” 75 

train. I don’t feel like a sea trip this afternoon. 
That — er — that crack on the head has shaken me 
up some, I guess. Explain to Van, will you? 
Tell him I’m all right, but that I’ve got a little 
headache. Understand? ” 

I presumed likely that I understood — more 
maybe than he thought I did. Headache is a fair 
to middling excuse, but I judged there was other 
things. I’d seen them two look at each other 
when they met, and — well, they say a nod’s as good 
as a wink to a blind horse, and I ain’t blind. I 
made a sort of note in my mind to get the pumps 
to working again on Lord James next time I got a 
chance at him alone. 

Hartley left me and went over to the railroad 
depot and I kept on down the road to the shore. 
I was loafing along, going over to myself the 
doings of the afternoon and wondering what Van 
Brunt would say and so on, when I come out into 
the clear place at the top of Meeting House Hill. 
And the meeting house clock struck four. 

I jumped like I’d set down on a hot stove. I 
hadn’t no idea it was as late as that. The pig and 
the Page girl and the rest of the mix-up had put all 
notion of time out of my head. I yanked out my 
watch to make sure that that clock was right, and 


MR. PRATT 


7 6 

then I glanced at the sky. Over to the east’ard 
a big, fat, gray fog bank was piling up. ’Twas 
high water at two, Eastwich Port cove is a nasty 
place to get out of at low tide, and here was an 
easterly fog coming. 

As a general thing I don’t take anybody’s wash 
when it comes to handling a boat, or looking out 
for weather and such, but now I was ready to sing 
small. A ten-year-old boy brought up along 
shore would have known better than to do as I’d 
done. Don’t make no odds how good an excuse 
I had for forgetting; no excuse is good where it 
comes to sailboating. I went down that hill like 
the man in the tin coffin went to Tophet, “ clinketty 
jingle.” I jumped fences and cut across lots, and 
I’m ready to swear right now that there’s more 
horse briars to the square inch in Eastwich Port 
than in any other place on the Lord’s green earth. 
I bust through the pines and come out on the 
beach yelling, “ Hi! Turn out, everybody! Get 
aboard now. Lively! ” 

And, by time ! there wa’n’t a soul in sight. For 
no less than twenty-two and a half minutes by my 
watch I walked up and down that beach, seeing the 
tide go out and bellering “ Ahoy! ” and “ Where 
are you? ” at the top of my lungs. And then, lo 


CRUISE OF THE “DORA BASSETT y) 


77 


and behold you, here comes Van Brunt and Lord 
James, poking along as easy as if they had all the 
time there was. Van had been over behind the 
point taking a swim and his Lordship had gone 
along to set on his boss’s trousers and keep the 
creases in, or some such mighty important job. 

“ All right, skipper; all right,” drawls Van, cool 
as a Sunday school boy at an ice cream sociable. 
“ You’ve got good lungs and you’d ought to be 
careful of ’em. I’ve heard you whooping for the 
last ten minutes. What did you and Martin have 
when you were up town? By the way, where is 
Martin? ” 

He was so everlasting comfortable and sassy 
and I was so biling hot and nervous that it made 
me mad. 

“ He’s gone home on the train,” I snapped out. 
“ Got a headache.” 

“Headache, eh? Humph! What did you 
have up town and where did you get it? ” 

“ Never mind where we got it,” says I. 
“ You’ll get a headache from setting up stuck on 
a shoal all night if you don’t get aboard that boat. 
Look at them clouds.” 

He looked at ’em. “ Ah,” he says; M very like 
a whale.” 


7 8 MR. PRATT 

I didn’t know what he meant and I didn’t 
care. 

“Whale!” says I. “Well, we’ll be lucky if 
we ain’t the Jonahs. Get aboard with that basket, 
you Opper what’s-your-name, will you; if you 
want to fetch port to-night.” 

Lord James looked like he’d like to put another 
“ ’ead ” on me, but his boss was round and he 
dassent talk back. Between us we loaded the dun- 
nage. Then Van got aboard, deliberate enough to 
try a parson’s patience, and I cast loose and got 
sail on the Dora Bassett. We’d made a start, 
anyhow. 

But it turned out that was all we’d made. Van 
commenced to ask me more about Hartley, and 
afore I could tell him the news about the pig race 
and the rest, the Dora Bassett run her nose on a 
sand flat and there she stuck. I was afraid of that 
tide all along. 

I tried to get her off with the oar, but ’twas no 
go. Then I pulled the skiff alongside — the one 
we’d been towing astern — and got into that and 
tried that way. But that wouldn’t work either. 
Finally I jumped overboard up to my waist and 
then I got her off. 

But she stuck again afore we got out of the cove. 


, CRUISE OF THE “DORA BASSETT” 79 

I splashed and shoved and worked for another 
half hour or so, the wind dying out and the fog 
drifting in. Time I got her afloat this time and 
had listened to a steady stretch of Van Brunt’s 
lazy sarcasms, my temper was worn to shoe-strings. 
Consarn the man ! It didn’t seem to make no dif- 
ference to him whether he got home that night or 
a week from then. 

We got out of that blessed cove and into the 
channel somewheres around six o’clock. Then 
’twas a dead beat home and the breeze pretty nigh 
gone. A few minutes, and the fog shut down on 
us, wet and thick and heavy as ever I see it. We 
poked along for an hour or so more and then 
’twas ’most dark and we wa’n’t half way to Well- 
mouth. Lord James was in his usual position, 
hanging on to the centerboard and moving his head 
from one side to t’other as if he was afraid of 
being hit when he wa’n’t looking. I’d pretty nigh 
scalped him with the boom once or twice and now 
he ducked whenever the tiller squeaked. He cer- 
tainly looked like a statue of misery in a fountain, 
with the fog dripping off his side-whiskers. 

Van was stretched out on the locker, blowing 
smoke rings and spouting poetry. I’d been too 
busy to tell him a word about his girl’s being in 


8o 


MR . PRATT 


the neighborhood. Fact is, I didn’t like the feel 
of things. I believed there was wind coming. 

“ See here,” says I, finally, “ one of you fellers’ 
’ll have to go for’ard and keep an eye out 
for shoals. We’re on the edge of the channel 
here and I want to be in deep water afore a 
squall hits us. I cal’late there’s one pretty nigh 
due.” 

His Lordship just stared at me fishy-eyed and 
pitiful. As for Van, he went on reciting some- 
thing about being on the sea, “ with the blue above 
and the blue below.” He wa’n’t going to stir — 
not him. 

“ Look here,” I says. “ If we strike a sand 
bar and a squall strikes us at the same time we’ll 
go below, way down, where it’s a big sight bluer 
than ’tis here, ’cording to the minister’s tell. Go 
for’ard on lookout, won’t you? ” 

So he went, though I doubt if he’d have known 
a bar when he see one — not that kind anyway. 

Pretty soon the breeze give out altogether. 
And then, from off in the distance, I heard a noise, 
a rushing, roaring kind of noise. 

“ Hark ! ” I yells. “ Do you hear that? Here 
she comes! Down with the jib. Haul on that 
rope, Mr. Van, will you? No, no! T’other 


CRUISE OF THE “DORA BASSETT” 81 


one ! T’other one ! Godfrey scissors ! Here 
you Opper; hang on to that tiller! Keep her just 
as she is.” 

I made a long arm, grabbed that valet man by 
the collar, yanked him into the sternsheets and 
jammed the tiller into his hand. Then I took a 
flying leap for’ard where the Twin was trying to 
cast loose the peak halliard, having a notion, it 
seemed, that it ought to belong to the jib. 

The squall struck us. The fog split into pieces, 
same as a rotten tops’l. The Dora Bassett heeled 
over till I thought she was going on her beam ends. 
His Lordship turned loose a yell like a tugboat 
whistle, lets go the tiller and dives headfirst into 
the cockpit amidships. As for me, I was swing- 
ing out over the side with my whole weight on the 
jib downhaul, pawing air with my feet, and trying 
to get back my balance. 

That downhaul was old and some rotten. It 
broke and I went overboard with a howl and a 
splash. 

I went down far enough to begin to get glimpses 
of that blue place I was speaking of just now. 
Then I pawed up for air. When my head stuck 
out of water there was something big and black 
swooping past it. I made a grab and caught hold. 


82 MR. PRATT 

As luck would have it ’twas the skiff we was tow- 
ing astern. 

I climbed into that skiff like a cat up a tree. 

I was full of salt water — eyes and all — but I 
could see the Dora Bassett flopping ahead of me 
with her gaff halfway down her mast. Seems 
the halliard had broken just after the downhaul 
did. 

I roared, a sputtering kind of roar. And then 
Van’s head stuck out over the sloop’s stern. 

“ God sakes! ” says he. u Are you drowned? ” 

“ Drowned! ” I hollers. “ Think I’m a pesky 
lubber just cause you — ” I had to stop here to 
cough. I was a regular tank, as you might say, 
of salt water. 

“Good heavens!” says Van. “Do they 
always do that — boats, I mean ? ” 

“ Always do — ” I was so mad at myself and 
all creation that I could scarcely answer. “ Oh, 
suffering mighty! if ever I go to sea again with a 
parcel of — Catch a hold of that tiller! Bring 
her into the wind! Cast off that mainsheet! 
Cast it off! Here comes another one! ” 

I suppose mainsheets are kind of scarce on the 
“ Street.” Anyhow I see that he didn’t know 
what I meant. 


CRUISE OF THE “DORA BASSETT" 83 

“ That rope at the stern,” I hollers, dancing 
around in the skiff. “ Cast it off! Lively! ” 

The second squall struck us. I see the Dora 
Bassett drive off in a sweeping half circle, the end 
of the boom knocking the tops of the waves 
to pieces and the spray flying like a waterfall. 
And, louder than the wind or anything else, I 
could hear Lord James bellering for home and 
mother. 

But ’twan’t till afterwards that I remembered 
any of this. Just then I had other fish to fry. 
There was two or three ropes at the sailboat’s 
stern and Van had cast off one of ’em, same as I 
ordered. 

Only , as it happened, instead of the mainsheet 
he’d cast off the skiff’s painter. Me and the Dora 
Bassett was parting company fast. 

From out of the dark ahead of me come a yell, 
louder even than Lord James’ distress signals. 

“ Sol! ” hollers Van Brunt. “ Sol Pratt! ” 

“ Ay, ay ! ” I screams. “ I’m all right. Never 
mind me. Put your helm over to port.” 

“Put what?” 

“ Put — your — helm — over — to — port! Port! 
you lubber! Port!” My manners had gone 
overboard when I did and they'd missed the skiff. 


84 


MR. PRATT 


’Twas quiet for a minute. Then, from further 
off comes the screech: 

“ What — part — of — the — - damn — thing — 
is — port? ” 

“ Never mind! ” I yells. “ Keep — her — just — 
as — she — is. You’ll — fetch — up — all — 
right. Better — take — reef. Slack — that — main 
— sheet ! ” 

Then I had to quit and grab up the oars and 
bring the skiff bow on to the seas. When I got her 
headed right I couldn’t see nor hear nothing of the 
Dora Bassett. As Major Philander Phinney says 
when he gets to telling how much better General 
Grant would have done if, he’d took his advice. I 
was “ disconnected with my base of supplies.” 


CHAPTER VI 


OZONE ISLAND 

1 WAS pretty busy for the next good while 
’tending to that skiff. And scared, don’t say 
a word. Not scared for myself, you under- 
stand — no indeed. When I get drowned, with a 
tight plank under me and a pair of oars in my 
hand, ’twon’t be in the bay, I’ll tell you that. But 
I was scared for Van Brunt and His Lordship in 
the Dora Bassett . They didn’t either of ’em 
know the jib boom from the rudder, and the valet 
was too crazy frightened to be of any use if he 
had. 

But Van was sure to be cool enough, and the 
broken gaff would act like a double reef, so that 
was some comfort. And the squall wa’n’t going 
to amount to nothing — ’twas only a fair breeze 
even now — so if Van had sense enough to keep the 
tiller straight and let her run they’d fetch up some- 
wheres alongshore, I judged. And, to make me 
hope still more, the squall had brought a complete 
85 


86 


MR. PRATT 


change of wind with it; now ’twas blowing back 
up the bay instead of out to sea. 

So I squared my shoulders and laid to the oars, 
heading for where, judging by the wind, the land 
ought to be. ’Twas darker than a black kitten in 
a nigger’s pocket, but I cal’lated to be able to hit 
the broadside of the United States somewheres. 
I got aground on the flats five or six times, but 
along towards midnight I butted ashore at the little 
end of nowhere where there was nothing but bushes 
and sand and pines, no sign of civilization. And 
by this time ’twas pouring rain. 

After a couple of years of scratching and swear- 
ing and falling down I come out of the scrub into 
a kind of clearing. Then I discovered a barbed 
wire fence by hanging up on it like a sheet on a line 
and located the back of a barn by banging into it 
with my head. Then a nice talkative dog come 
out of the barn and located me, and things com- 
menced to liven up. 

While me and the dog was conducting our ex- 
perience meeting a light showed in an upstairs win- 
dow a little ways off and somebody sticks their 
head out and wants to know what’s the matter. 

“ Who are you? ” he says. 

“ My name’s Pratt,” says I. 


OZONE ISLAND 


87 


“ Where are you? ” 

“ Well,” I says, “ judging by the feel and smell 
I’m on the top of the pig-sty. But I ain’t real 
sure. I can tell you where your dog is, if you 
want to know.” 

“ What are you doing round here this time of 
night? ” he says. 

I told him as well as I could. The dog was 
having a conniption fit, trying to bark itself inside 
out, and I had to say things over three or four 
times so’s a body could hear. But the feller at 
the window wa’n’t satisfied even then. I never 
see such a wooden-head. 

“ What Pratt did you say you was? ” he hollers. 

I told him my name and where I hailed from. 

“Sol Pratt?” says he. “Of Wellmouth? 
What are you doing way over here? ” 

“Blast it all!” I yells. “If I wa’n’t half 
drowned already I should say I was getting wet. 
Turn out and let a feller into the kitchen or 
somewheres, won’t you? And tie up this ever- 
lasting dog.” 

That seemed to wake him up some and in ten 
minutes or so he comes poking out with a lantern. 
I knew him then. ’Twas Ebenezer Holbrook, 
Huldy Ann Scudder’s sister’s husband, who lives 


88 


MR. PRATT 


over in the woods on the line between South East- 
wich and West Ostable. There was another man 
with him and blest if it didn’t turn out to be 
Nate Scudder himself. Him and Huldy was visit- 
ing over there, same as he said they was going to. 

Nate had more than a million questions to ask. 
Ebenezer tied up the dog — the critter pretty nigh 
broke down and sobbed when he found I wa’n’t to 
be fed to him — and we went into the kitchen. 
Then Mrs. Holbrook and Huldy Ann, rigged up 
tasty and becoming in curl papers and bedquilts, 
floated downstairs and there was more questions. 

When Nate found out that one of his lodgers 
was cast adrift in the bay he was almost as worried 
and upset as I was. But Ebenezer agreed with us 
that there was a good chance of the sloop’s getting 
ashore safe. He said why didn’t I turn in on his 
setting-room lounge for the few hours between 
then and sun-up, and in the morning me and Nate 
could take his yawl dory and cruise alongshore and 
hunt. So I done it, though ’twas precious little 
sleep I got. 

About six o’clock we started. I thought first 
I’d go up to Eastwich village and telegraph to 
Hartley. Then I thought I’d better not; no use 
to scare him till I had to. Nate had heard about 


OZONE ISLAND 


89 


the pig chase and Hartley’s doings over there and 
he pestered the life out of me with questions about 
that. 

“ Queer that boy should turn out to be his 
brother, wa’n’t it?” he says. 

“Whose brother?” says I, leaning out over 
the yawl’s side and watching for signs of the Dora 
Bassett. 

“ Why, Hartley’s,” says he. 

“Brother!” says I. “ ’Twan’t his brother. 
No relation to him.” 

“ I heard different,” he says. “ I heard ’twas 
his brother, name of Oscar Dennis. And that 
woman from the school was his brother’s wife. 
Some says she ain’t living with her husband and 
some say Hartley’s right name is Dennis and that 
she’s his wife and he was down here hiding from 
her. Seems when that boy first dove into the 
crowd ’twas because he’d seen Hartley. They 
say that when that woman and this Hartley met, 
she sings out, 1 My God ! my husband ! ’ That’s 
what some says she said, and others says ” 

“ She never said no such thing,” I says. “ She 
wouldn’t swear if he was her husband four times 
over; she ain’t that kind. And she ain’t his wife 
nor his sister nor his sister-in-law nor his grand- 


90 


MR. PRATT 


mother’s cat’s aunt, neither. She’s no relation to 
him and neither’s the boy. Who’s been giving you 
all this rigmarole? ” 

It seems he’d heard it from a feller that lived 
next door to Ebenezer; and the feller had heard it 
from somebody else that had got it from some- 
body else and so on and so on and so on. Nigh’s 
I could find out it had started from Hartley’s tell- 
ing me that the boy was a “ brother outcast.” 
Some idiot with poor ears and worse brains had 
thought he said “ brother Oscar,” and the whole 
string of yarns had sprouted from that. Shows 
you what good soil there is for planting lies down 
our way. If lies was fetching ten cents a barrel 
the whole neighborhood would have been rich 
years ago. 

All the time me and Nate was pow-wowing this 
way the yawl was sailing up the bay towing my 
skiff behind her. There was a nice fair wind and 
a smooth sea and ’twas so clear after the rain, that 
we could see the hills across the bay. But no sign 
could we see of the Dora Bassett nor her passen- 
gers. I was getting more worried every minute. 

We cruised along till we got abreast of the point 
from where the Old Home pier was in sight. But 
the sloop wa’n’t at the pier. No use going any 


OZONE ISLAND 


91 


farther, so we come about and begun to beat back 
again the way we’d come. Scudder was worried 
too, but his worriment had caught him in the 
pocketbook; proves how disease will always get 
hold of a feller’s tenderest place. 

‘.‘Look here, Sol,” says he; “do you cal’late 
Hartley ’ll want to stay to my house if his chum’s 
drowned? ” 

“ I don’t know,” I says, impatient. “ No, I 
guess not.” 

“ Well now, he agreed to take it for a month 
and there’s five days to run yet. Ain’t he liable 
for them days? ” he says. 

I was feeling just mean enough to want some- 
body else to feel that way, so I answers, 

“ Well, you can’t hold a lunatic, ’cording to 
law. And you and Huldy Ann have agreed that 
he’s crazy.” 

He thumped the boat’s rail. “ Crazy or not,” 
says he, “I can’t afford to lose them days. I 
shan’t give him back none of his money.” Then 
he thought a minute and begun to see a speck of 
comfort. “ Maybe the shock of t’other feller’s 
drowning ’ll make him sick,” he says. “ Then 
he’ll have to stay longer than the month.” 

Trust Nate Scudder to see a silver lining to any 


9 2 MR. PRATT 

cloud — and then rip out the lining and put it in 
his pocket 

By this time we was beating in towards where 
the Neck Road comes down to the beach. And 
there on the shore was a feller hailing us. And 
when we got close in it turned out to be Hartley 
himself. 

He was glad enough to see me, but when he 
found that Van and Lord James had turned up 
missing he was in a state. He’d been kind of 
scared when we didn’t come back during the night 
and had walked down to the beach in the morning 
to see if he could sight us. 

We headed off shore again. Nate watched 
Hartley pretty close and I suppose when he seen 
that the Twin didn’t show any symptoms of getting 
sick, he begun to worry again. He got out a piece 
of pencil and an old envelope and commenced to 
figure. 

“ Mr. Hartley,” says he, after awhile; “ about 
them lady friends of yours over to Eastwich. Do 
you cal’late they’re going to like where they are? 
Seems to me a place that’s as easy to run away from 
as that ain’t the best place for a boy’s school. If 
they was on an island now, the scholars couldn’t 
run off. I know a nice island they could have 


OZONE ISLAND 


93 


cheap. Fact is, I own it — that is, Huldy owns it; 
it’s in her name. That’s it over there.” 

Hartley didn’t answer. I looked where Nate 
was pointing. 

“Oh!” says I. “ Horsefoot Bar. That’s a 
healthy place for a school. Might do for a 
reform school maybe, if you wa’n’t particular how 
the reforming was done.” 

Horsefoot Bar is a little island about five mile 
from the Old Home House, a mile and a half from 
the mainland, and two foot from the jumping-off 
place. By the help of Providence, decent weather, 
a horse, two whips, and a boat, you can make it 
from Wellmouth depot in three hours. And 
when you have made it, you can set in the sand 
and hang on to your hat and listen to the lone- 
someness. I’d forgot that Scudder owned it. 
When him and I had sailed up that morning we’d 
passed it on the outside; now we was between it 
and the beach. 

“ It’s a nice dry place,” says Nate, arguing, 
“ and you might live there forever and nobody 
could run away.” 

“ Humph! ” says I, thinking of something I’d 
seen in a newspaper; “ Hell’s got all them recom- 
mendations.” 


94 


MR. PRATT 


Hartley was looking at the Bar now. All to 
once he grabbed me by the arm and pointed. 

“ Sol,” he says, “ what’s that sticking up over 
the point there? There, behind those trees? 
Isn’t it a boat’s mast? ” 

I looked, and looked once more. From where 
we was you could see a part of Horsefoot Bar that 
was out of sight from the rest of the bay. As I 
say, I looked. Then I gave the tiller a shove that 
brought the boom across with a slat. It took 
Nate’s hat with it and cracked him on the bald spot 
like thumping a ripe watermelon. Nate grabbed 
for the hat and I drove the yawl for Horsefoot 
Bar. I’d spied the Dora Bassett’s mast over the 
sandspit. 

In a jiffy we see her plain. She was lying on 
her side in a little cove, just as the tide had 
left her. Her canvas was down in a heap, 
partly on deck and partly overboard, but she 
didn’t seem to be hurt none. I beached the 
yawl just alongside of her, dropped the sail, 
chucked over the anchor and jumped over my- 
self. Hartley and Scudder followed. We was 
yelling like loons. 

Up through the bunch of scrub pines we tore, 
still hollering. And then, from away off ahead 


OZONE ISLAND 


95 


somewheres, come the answer. I was so tickled 
I could have stood on my head. 

In a minute here comes Lord James to meet us. 
His Lordship looked yellow and faded, like a 
wilted sunflower, and his whiskers seemed to be 
running to seed. But his dignity was on deck all 
right. 

“ Mr. ’Artley,” says he, touching what was left 
of his hat; “ ’ope you’re well, sir.” 

“ Where’s Van? ” asked Hartley, brisk. 

“ Mr. Van Brunt, sir? Up at the ’ouse, wait- 
ing for you, sir.” 

“ The house? ” says Hartley. 

“ The house ? ” says I. Then I remembered. 

There is a house on Horsefoot Bar. It was 
built by old man Marcellus Berry, and in Marcel- 
lus’s day they built houses, didn’t stick ’em to- 
gether with wall paper and a mortgage, like they 
do now. Consequence is that, though the winter 
weather on Horsefoot made Marcellus lay down 
a considerable spell ago, his house still stands, as 
pert and sassy an old gable-ended jail as ever was. 
The house was there, and Scudder owned it. 
Likewise he owned the sheds and barn in back, and 
the sickly bunch of scrub pines, and the beach plum 
bushes, and the beach grass and the poverty grass, 


96 MR . PRATT 

and the world-without-end of sand that all these 
things was stuck up in. As for the live stock, that 
was seven thousand hop-toads, twenty million sand 
fleas, and green-heads and mosquitoes forever and 
ever, amen. 

We fell into the valet’s wake and waded through 
the sand hummocks up to the house. And there 
on the piazza, sitting in a busted cane-seat chair 
with his feet cocked up on the railing and the regu* 
lation cigar in his mouth, was Van Brunt, kind of 
damp and wrinkled so far as clothes went, but 
otherwise as serene and chipper a Robinson Crusoe 
as the average man is likely to strike in one life 
time. 

Wa’n’t we glad to see him! And he was just 
as glad to see us. 

“ Hello, skipper,” says he, reaching out his 
hand. “ So you got ashore all right. Good 
enough. I was a bit fearful for you after you left 
us last night.” 

After I left him! I liked that. And he was 
fearful for me. 

“ Humph! ” says I, “ I had a notion that ’twas 
you that did the leaving. Talk about dropping an 
acquaintance! I never was dropped like that 
afore ! Look here, Mr. Van Brunt, afore you and 


OZONE ISLAND 


97 


me go to sea together again we’ll have a little 
lesson in running rigging. I want to learn you 
what a mainsheet is.” 

“ Oh,” he says, careless like, “ I guess I found 
it, after a while. At any rate if it’s a rope I cut 
it. I cut all the ropes in sight.” 

“ You did? }) says I, with my mouth open. 

“Yes. That’s an acrobatic boat of yours; it 
seemed to want to turn somersets. I judged that 
that sail made it top-heavy so I told James to take 
the sail down. He didn’t know how but we de- 
cided that the ropes must have something to do 
with it. So I cut ’em, one after the other, and the 
sail came down.” 

“Sudden?” says I. 

“ Well, fairly so. Some of it was in the water 
and the rest of it on James. I resurrected him 
finally and we pulled most of it into the boat. It 
went better then.” 

“ Did, hey? ” says I. I was learning seaman- 
ship fast. 

“ Yes,” says he. “ If I were you I wouldn’t 
have any sail on that boat. She does much better 
without one. Then it began to rain and I got 
some of the dry sail over me. I believe I went to 
sleep then — or soon after.” 


98 


MR. PRATT 


Nate Scudder’s eyes was big as preserve dishes. 
I guess mine was bigger still. 

“ Good Lord! ” says I. “ Did his — did James 
go to sleep too? ” 

“ No,” says Van. “ L think not. I believe 
James was holding some sort of religious service. 
How about it, James? ” 

His Lordship looked sheepish. “ Well, sir,” 
he says. “ I don’t know sir. I may ’ave been a 
bit nervous; I’m not used to a boat, sir.” 

“ I shouldn’t mind your praying, James,” Van 
says, sober as a deacon; “if you didn’t yell so. 
However, we got here on this island about five 
o’clock, I believe. Rather, the boat came here 
herself ; we didn’t have anything to do with 
it.” 

I never in my life! They say the Almighty 
looks out for the lame and the lazy. Van Brunt 
wa’n’t lame, but 

“ Well,” says I. “ I’ll believe in special Provi- 
dences after this.” 

Van jumped out of the chair. 

“By George!” he sings out. “Talking of 
special Providences; Martin, come here.” 

He grabbed t’other Twin by the arm and led 
him down off the piazza and up to the top of a 


OZONE ISLAND 


99 

little hill near the house. The rest of us followed 
without being invited. I know you couldn’t have 
kept me back with a chain cable. I haven’t visited 
many asylums and I wanted to see the patients 
perform. ! 

“ Look here, Martin,” says Van, when we got 
to the top of the hill. “ Look around you.” 

We all looked, I guess; I know I did. There 
was the old Berry house, square and weather- 
beat and gray. And there was a derelict barn 
and a half dozen pig pens and hen houses stranded 
alongside of it. And there was Horsefoot Bar 
all around us for a half mile or so, sand and 
beach grass andDhop-toads, all complete. And 
beyond on onetside was the bay, with the water 
looking blue and pretty in the forenoon sunshine. 
And on t’other side was the mile and a half strip 
we’d just sailed across, with the beach and main- 
land over yonder. Not a soul but us in sight any- 
wheres. The* whole lay-out would have made a 
first-rate photograph of the last place the Lord 
made; the one He forgot to finish. 

“Look at it!” hollers Van. “Look at it! 
Now what is it? ” 

I begun to be sorry the keeper hadn’t arrived 
that time when I thought he was coming. I cal’- 


100 


MR. PRATT 


lated he was needed right now. Martin seemed 
to think so, too. He looked puzzled. 

“What is it?” he says. “What’s what? 
What do you mean? ” 

“ Why this whole business. Island and house 
and scenery and quiet and all. You old block- 
head!” hollers Van, giving the other Twin an 
everlasting bang on the back; “ Don’t you see? 
It’s what we’ve been looking for all these weeks — 
it’s the pure, unadulterated, accept-no-imitations 
Natural Life! ” 

I set down in the sand. Things were coming 
too fast for me. If this kept on I’d be counting 
my fingers and playing cat’s cradle along with the 
rest of the loons pretty soon. I knew it. 

But, would you believe it, Martin Hartley didn’t 
seem to think his chum was out of his mind. He 
fetched a long breath. 

“ By Jove! ” he says, slow; “ I don’t know but 
you’re right.” 

“ Right? You bet I’m right! It’s been grow- 
ing on me ever since I landed. We’ll be alone; 
no females, native or imported, to bother us. 
Here’s a bully old house with some furniture, bed- 
steads and so on, already in it. I broke a window 
and climbed in for a rummage. Jolliest old ark 


OZONE ISLAND 


IOI 


you ever saw. Here’s a veranda to sit on, and air 
to breathe, and a barn for a cow, and plenty of 
room for a garden and chickens — whew I Man 
alive, it’s Paradise! And I want to locate the 
man that owns it. I want to find him quick” 

He didn’t have to say it but once. Nate Scud- 
der was so full of joy that he had to shove his 
hands in his pockets to keep from hugging himself. 
44 I own it,” he says. 

44 You do! Scudder, you’re a gem. I begin 
to love you like a brother. Martin and I hire this 
place; do you understand? It’s ours from this 
minute, for as long as we want it.” 

Nate commenced to hem and haw. 44 Well, I 
don’t know,” he says. 44 1 don’t know’s I ought 
to let you have it. There’s been considerable 

many folks after it, and ” 

44 Never mind. They can’t have it. We out- 
bid ’em. See?” 

44 What will we do for groceries? ” asks Hart- 
ley considering. 

44 Scudder ’ll bring ’em to us,” says Van. 
“ Won’t you, Scudder? ” 

44 Well, I don’t know, Mr. Van Brunt. I’m 

pretty busy now, and ” 

“ We’ll pay you for your time, of course.” 


102 


MR. PRATT 


“ What about beds and cooking utensils and 
so on? ” asks Hartley, considering some more. 

“ Scudder’ll buy ’em for us somewheres.” 

“ And milk, and eggs, and butter? ” 

“ Scudder — till we get our own chickens and cow.” 

“And — er — well, a cook? Who’ll do the 
cooking? ” 

Van Brunt stoops down and slaps me on the 
shoulder. 

“ Pratt,” says he. “ Pratt will come here and 
cook for us, and navigate us, and be our general 
manager. Pratt’s the boy! ” 

“ Hold on there ! ” I sings out. “ Avast heav- 
ing, will you. If you think for one minute that 
I’m going to quit my summer job to come to this 
hole and live, you’re ” 

“ You’re coming,” says Van. “ Never mind 
the price; we’ll pay it. Now shut up! you’re 
coming.” 

What can you say to a chap like that? I 
groaned. 

“ Live on Horsefoot Bar,” I says. “Live on 
it! ” 

“Horsefoot Bar?” says Van. “Is that its 
name? Well, it’s Horsefoot Bar no more. I’ve 
been evolving a name ever since I began to 


OZONE ISLAND 


103 


breathe here. Breathe, Martin,” he says. “ Draw 
a good breath. That’s it. That’s pure ozone. 
Gentlemen, permit me to introduce to you, Ozone 
Island.” 

Scudder grinned. He was feeling ready to grin 
at most anything just then. 

“Ozone Island?” says Hartley. “Ozone 
Island. A restful name. Well, it’s a restful 
spot. Isn’t it, skipper? ” 

“Yes,” says I. “As restful as being buried 
alive; and pretty nigh as pleasant.” 


CHAPTER VII 


SWEET SIMPLICITY 


D so that’s how they begun to live the 



Natural Life, what Van called the u ac- 


^ ^ cept-no-imitations ” kind. I say “ they ” 
but I ought to have said “ we ” for I was in it. I 
was in it over head and hands from that time on. 
I didn’t mean to be. When I said I wouldn’t emi- 
grate to Horsefoot Ozone and be cook and gen- 
eral roustabout for the Heavenly Twins I was just 
as certain I meant what I said as a body could be. 

u No,” says I. 

“ Yes,” says Van. 

u How can I leave the Old Home folks?” I 
says. 

“ How can you leave us? ” he says. 

“ But you’ve got James.” 

“ Yes, but James hasn’t got us.” 

“ But I can’t afford to come,” says I. 

“ You can’t afford to do anything else,” says he. 

And that’s about what it amounted to — I 


104 


SWEET SIMPLICITY 


105 


couldn't afford to do nothing else. The wages 
kept jumping like summer folks’ bids at one of 
them auction sales of “ antiques.” I seemed to 
be as valuable as grandmother’s busted hair cloth 
sofa. If I’d hung out long enough I cal’late the 
Heavenlies would have fixed me so I’d have begun 
to feel ’twas a crime to die rich. / give in first; I 
want everybody to understand that. 

“All right,” says I. “That’ll do; I’ll come. 
But I hope you’ll pay me in a dark room. I’ll be 
ashamed to look you in the face and take that 
much money.” 

They said they was satisfied if I was. I was 
satisfied, all but my conscience. Made me wish 
I could swop consciences with Scudder. 

Nate’s conscience wasn’t worrying him any; you 
can bet on that. I wa’n’t around when he made 
the deal for renting ’em the island, but, from what 
I heard afterwards, the price would have been 
high if he’d been selling it to ’em by the pound 
to scour knives with. He agreed to get bedding 
for ’em and tin things, and a pig, and crockery, 
and hens, and groceries, and boards to tinker up 
the barn with, and anything else that might come 
in handy. Likewise he was to fetch and carry 
for ’em between the village and the island; so 


io6 


MR. PRATT 


much to fetch and twice that to carry. And 
Huldy Ann was to do the washing. 

When the Twins told me about it you’d think 
they’d just pulled through one of them stock 
“ deals ” of theirs, and come out on top. 

“ Isn’t it great? ” crows Van, happy as a clam 
at high water. “ We’ve arranged it all. Every- 
thing is provided for and will be done.” 

I could see two things that was going to be done 
— brown; but I didn’t say nothing. 

“ It’s mighty good of Scudder to accommodate 
us this way,” says Hartley. “ He’s a gem, a 
rough diamond.” 

“ Scudder,” says Van, “ is one of Nature’s 
noblemen.” 

Of course ’twa’n’t none of my funeral; I 
couldn’t interfere. But I’m a democrat myself, 
so the nobility don’t appeal to me much, and if 
Nate Scudder’s a diamond I’m glad I can’t afford 
jewelry. 

The next day was a busy one for all hands, each 
in his own particular line. Nate commenced run- 
ning u accommodation ” trains, so to speak, be- 
tween his house and the village and Horsefoot 
Bar — Ozone Island, I should say. As for me, I 
went up to the Old Home House right off, ex- 


SWEET SIMPLICITY 


107 


plained matters to the manager, and cleared out 
for my new job. The Heavenlies moved over to 
Ozone that very morning. Lord James went with 
’em and the simple naturalness commenced. 

Fast as Nate would arrive in his dory with a 
cargo of dunnage I’d cart it up to the Berry house 
and dump it on the piazza. Lord James was fly- 
ing around, with a face on him as sour as a cran- 
berry pie, opening windows and airing rooms and 
sweeping out, and the like of that. The old she- 
bang had been shut up for a couple of years and 
was as musty and damp as a receiving tomb. His 
Lordship looked like the head mourner; this kind 
of work jarred his dignity. 

“ Look a-’ere, Pratt,” says he to me. “ ’Ow 
long do you think we’re going to stay ’ere? ” 

“Where?” says I, sliding a trunk and a coal 
hod off my shoulders, and mopping my forehead 
with my shirt-sleeve. 

“ Why ’ere, on this ’orrible sand ’eap.” 

“ You want to be careful,” says I, “ how you 
call names. This is Ozone Horsefoot Island, and 
it’s a branch station of Paradise. Didn’t you hear 
the boss say so? ” 

“ But ’ow long are we going to stay ’ere? ” he 
says again. 


io8 


MR. PRATT 


“ Well,” says I, “ when a feller gets to Paradise 
it’s the general idea that he’s there for keeps. 
What are you growling about? Such a nice rest- 
ful spot, too. Don’t you like to be restful? ” 

He looked at his hands, they was all over blisters 
from the broom. 

“ Restful! ” he groans. “ Good ’eavens! ” 

“ Come, James,” says Hartley, loafing around 
the corner, with his hands in his pockets. “ Get a 
move on. We must have this house in order by 
to-night.” 

The Twins was awful busy, too. They done 
the heavy superintending. Hartley superintended 
the house and piazza and Van Brunt bossed the un- 
loading and trucking of the dunnage from the 
dory. As for me, I was the truck. After the 
first day was over I could see that all the natural 
living I’d done in my time wa’n’t the real thing at 
all. Not a circumstance to it. 

I carted dunnage all the forenoon. Then I 
cooked dinner and washed dishes. James was 
going to help me wipe ’em but Van’s clothes had 
got wet when he was adrift in the Dora Bassett 
and they had to be pressed. So I wiped and 
cleaned up and carted more dunnage, including 
stove pipe and blankets and flour and quilts and 


SWEET SIMPLICITY. 


109 


nails and pork and pillows and a rake and sugar, 
and the land knows what. Then I cooked supper. 
And how them Paradise tenants did eat! 

“ By gad, you know! ” busts out Van Brunt, 
with his mouth full; “ this is what we’ve been look- 
ing for, Martin. This is getting back to nature.” 

Hartley grunted, being too busy with a fried 
mackerel to talk with comfort. But it was easy 
to see he was satisfied. 

They went on, bragging about how good it was 
to cut loose from the fight and worry of the Street. 
At last, according to Van, they realized that life 
was worth living. 

“ No more speculation for me,” he says, joyful. 
“ No more fretting about margins. I don’t give 
a continental if the bottom drops out of the market 
and carries the sides with it. I hereby solemnly- 
swear for the fifth time never to buy another share 
of stock.” 

Then he reaches after another half-acre slab of 
my johnny-cake. 

Lord James was upstairs in the sleeping vaults 
sorting out bed clothes. The sheets and blankets 
and things was more or less mixed up with the 
hardware and groceries. I was out in the kitchen 
getting ready a second relay of mackerel. The 


no MR. PRATT 

dining-room door was open, so I could see and hear 
everything. 

“ By the way, Martin,’’ says Van, buttering the 
johnny-cake, “ how did Agnes look? Well? ” 

“ Yes,” says Hartley, short. 

“ She must have been surprised to see you. 
Did you tell her we were naturalized citizens, or 
on the road to it? ” 

“ No.” 

“No? Why not? She probably thinks that 
we’re down here organizing another syndicate. 
For a girl whose mother is of the world worldly, 
Agnes has developed queer ideas. I suppose I 
ought to go over and see her,” he went on. 
“You said she had another girl with her. Who 
is it?” 

“ Margaret Talford.” 

“ Talford — Talford? One of the Newport 
Talfords? Oh, I know. Pretty little girl, dark 
hair and brown eyes, and — and a way with her? ” 

“ I guess so. Very likely. I haven’t seen 
her.” 

Van seemed to be thinking. “ I’ll go over to- 
morrow,” he says. 

Then he commenced to whoop for more mack- 
erel and ’twas time for me to load up the platter. 


SWEET SIMPLICITY m 

I thought I’d cooked supper enough for six men, 
but when the Twins got through I had to fry 
another ration for me and Lord James. Eat! I 
never see such sharks in my life. 

When they’d finished everything on the table, 
except the knives and forks and the dishes, the 
Heavenlies went outside to smoke cigars and prom- 
enade up and down the beach. His Lordship and 
I set down to have a bite ourselves. 

“ Say,” says I, “ that Page girl is a good looker, 
ain’t she?” 

He was horrified, same as he always was when 
you mentioned the New York big bugs without 
getting up and bowing. 

“ Miss Page,” says he, “ is a member of one of 
our first families.” 

“ Want to know,” says I. “ First in what? ” 

“ First in everything,” he says. “ Her father 
was one of our oldest residents.” 

“So?” says I. “Oldest inhabitant, hey? I 
suppose he could remember way back afore the 
town hall was built, and about the hard winter of 
’38, and how his ma’s cousin used to do chores for 
George Washington.” 

I knew pretty well what he meant, but, you see, 
I liked to stir him up. He was such an innocent 


12 


MR. PRATT 


critter; always swallowed hook, line and sinker. 
It done me good to see him stare at me after I 
said things like this. 

All he said now though was “ ’Orrors ! ” 

“ How about your boss, this Van Brunt? ” says 
I. “ He’s another first rater, hey? ” 

The Van Brunts was even more “ first families ” 
than the Pages, so the valet said. They’d been 
there ever since New York was built. ’Twas 
their ancestors that got up the first barn-raising, or 
words to that effect. 

“ And Hartley? ” says I. 

That was different. The Hartleys was another 
breed of cats. Martin’s dad was born in Chicago 
or somewheres outside of New York. He’d re- 
pented of it, of course, and tried to live it down, 
but he never had been quite the big apples on the 
top layer, like the Van Brunts. He was dead 
now, old man Hartley was; been dead three or 
four years. 

u How about ma? ” says I. 

She was dead, too; died a year or more ago. 
Martin was an orphan. 

And then I cal’lated it was about time to heave 
out the question that I’d been leading up to all 
along. 


SWEET SIMPLICITY 


113 

“ What made the Page girl cut loose from him 
and take up with Van? ” I says. “ She don’t look 
like the kind that would be too hard on a chap just 
because his dad made the mistake of being born out 
of township limits.” 

Lord James fidgeted some over that. First he 
said he didn’t know. 

“ Well,” says I, “ let’s guess then. Guessing’s 
a good Yankee trick and you’d ought to have 
picked it up by this time. You guess first.” 

He didn’t want to guess, but I kept at him, 
throwing out all sorts of foolish maybes and per- 
hapses. Finally he got tired of saying “ No.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” says he. “ I ’eard as ’ow 
’twas because ’e was too mercenary. ’E was an 
awful chap in the Street after ’is old man died. ’E 
was there night and day. ’Ardly came ’ome at 
all.” 

“ Humph! ” says I. “ I’d never suspicioned it 
to look at him. Wa’n’t he doing well at his job ? ” 

Lord James said it wa’n’t that. Said he was 
doing mighty well. Folks was calling him a 
“born financier ” and all sorts of names. 

“ So? ” says I. “ Then I don’t see that Miss 
Page had any complaints. ’Tain’t usual for a 
young woman to kick because her steady company 


MR. PRATT 


1 14 

is making too much money. There’s something 
else. Out with it. I’ll keep my mouth shut.” 

So then he told me a little — much as he knew, I 
guess likely. Seems that he was acquainted with 
the feller they call the butler — sort of a steward, I 
judged he was — over at the Page girl’s house. 
And this butler was sweet on the “ maid ” — the 
young woman valet who took care of Agnes’s duds 
and spare rigging. And one night this maid hap- 
pened to be in the “ conservatory ” — which I pre- 
sumed likely was the high-toned name for the pre- 
serve closet — and Miss Page and Hartley was in 
the setting room. And Agnes was laying into 
Martin for staying down town and neglecting her. 

The maid said she could hear only part of the 
talk, but ’twas more than average sharp and vin- 
egarry. Agnes told Martin he was getting more 
mercenary every day he lived. That all he 
thought of was the office and making money. She 
detested a mercenary, hard, money-grasping man. 
Said money-loving was the worst vice there was, 
and she thanked God she had none of it, meaning 
vice, of course — she had money enough to sink a 
ship. 

Then Martin he speaks up proud and short and 
says he has been working hard and had been trying 


SWEET SIMPLICITY n 5 

to make money. Said he had a good reason for 
it, and some day he would tell her what it was. 
She said he could tell her now or hang his May- 
baskets on somebody else’s door — or words to 
that effect. He says “ Very well,” and she says 
something else, but the maid didn’t hear it because 
just then old lady Page come in and give her her 
walking papers for listening. 

“ And so,” says Lord James, “ the engagement 
was broke off. And a good thing too, I say. 
W’at’s the use of ’er lowering ’erself to marry a 
man whose father got ’is money in trade? ” 

“ How did Van’s dad get his money? ” I asks. 

“ By in’eritance,” says he. “ Of course Mr. 
Edward dabbles in shares, but, Lord love you, 
only for the fun of it.” 

“ How was the inheritance come by in the first 
place? ” says I. He didn’t know, but I found out 
afterwards. Grandpa Van Brunt was an aider- 
man. 

The Twins come back into the house then. 
They come in slapping and jawing. I judged that 
the mosquitoes was living the Natural Life too. 
The Heavenlies set down on each side of the fire- 
place — I had a wood fire going, just for sociable- 
ness — and smoked and talked. 


MR. PRATT 


ii 6 

By and by Van rummages out that Natural book 
and spreads it open. 

“ Martin,” says he, “ hark to the voice of the 
oracle. Come in here, skipper, and improve your 
mind.” 

But me and his Lordship was improving the 
dishes just then, and, when that was done, he had 
beds to make and I had bread to mix and fires to 
lay and wood to chop and a couple of million other 
chores to do. The Twins read and talked until 
they got sleepy, which was about half past nine or 
so; earlier than usual, but neither of ’em had rested 
well the night afore, I guess. Anyhow they went 
upstairs to turn in and I kept on with my work. 
Lord James turned in too. He had the back bed- 
room, the one over the kitchen. 

’Twas still as still could be. The door and win- 
dows was open and there wa’n’t a sound except the 
mosquitoes humming glad and thankful, and the 
breeze whining in the pines outside and the waves 
moaning along the bay shore of the island. Once 
in awhile I’d hear his Lordship thrash over in bed 
and fetch a grunt or a groan in his sleep. He had 
one of the late Marcellus’s cornhusk mattresses 
and I wouldn’t wonder if there was a cob end or 
two in with the husks. A rake across the back 


SWEET SIMPLICITY 


>7 


from a corn cob ain’t the most comforting thing in 
the world even when a feller is used to it, and 
Lord James had been brought up tender. 

Pretty soon I went to the back door to throw 
out some fish-bones and things and then I heard 
somebody tramping through the sand up to the 
house. Neighbors are scarcer than snake’s finger- 
nails ’round Horsefoot Ozone and I couldn’t think 
who was coming at this time of night. I ain’t a 
nervous chap, generally speaking, but I remem- 
bered how old Marcellus had died in this very 
house all sole alone, and the short hairs at the back 
of my neck begun to bristle up. I cal’lated if any- 
thing would fetch a sot old codger like Marcellus 
out of his grave, the doings of the Heavenlies was 
that thing. 

But in a minute more the walker got into the 
light from the door and I could see him. And I 
was ’most as much surprised as if he had been 
Marcellus himself. ’Twas Nate Scudder, with his 
arms full of bundles. 

“ What in the nation? ” says I. 

“ Hello, Sol,” says he. “ Where’s the folks? ” 
“ Turned in,” says I. “ What’s up? ” 

He seemed real disappointed. Set the bundles 
down on the kitchen table and puffed. That sand 


,,8 MR. PRATT 

is hard walking, and nobody knows it better than 
I do. 

“Turned in so early, have they?” he says. 

“ That’s too bad. I wanted to see ’em.” 

“ Want me to roust ’em out? ” I asks. 

“No, I guess not. But they’re nice folks as ever 
I see and I’ve fetched ’em a few presents.” 

I flopped into a chair. I was getting used to 
surprises, but Nate’s giving anybody a present was 
the biggest wonder yet. I figured that lunacy was 
catching and we was all going crazy together. 

“ Yes,” says he. “ Me and Huldy Ann’s been 
talking it over. They’ve hired this house and — 
and — all the rest of it and we want ’em to like 
it. Don’t want ’em to get tired and leave, you 
see.” 

I see all right. When the melon’s getting ripe 
that’s the time to watch it. 

“ Yes,” he says. “ I like them young feller’s 
well’s anybody I ever see and so does Huldy. We 
got to thinking of ’em over here in this big house 
and we wanted ’em to feel at home; just as if 
; twas home. Now there’s nothing like pictures 
and such on the walls to make a place homey. So 
Huldy and me has sent ’em these few things to 
hang up ’round.” 


SWEET SIMPLICITY 


119 

He commenced to undo the bundles. 

“ ’Twas Huldy Ann’s notion,” he went on. 
“ When she bought this place at auction there was 
the furniture and fixings in it that belonged to 
Marcellus. Some of ’em we left here, beds and 
chairs and the like of that, and some we took over 
to our house. There was more than we needed 
and these is some we had in the attic.” 

He’d got the newspapers and strings off by this 
time and he spread the presents out on the floor. 
There was a wax wreath, from old Mrs. Berry’s 
funeral, in a round case ; and a crayon enlargement 
of a daguerreotype of Marcellus when he was 
thirty or so ; he had a fancy vest on and a choker 
and a fringed-end necktie, and looked like he was 
freezing to death fast and knew it. Likewise 
there was a shell work basket in a shell frame with 
about a third of the shells missing; and two silver 
coffin plates on black velvet; and a worsted motto 
thing with “ What is Home Without a Mother ” 
on it. 

“There!” says Nate, happy and generous. 
“ We’ll give ’em them things, Huldy and me. 
Leastways they can have ’em to look at while 
they’re here. Have ’em strung around on the set- 
ting-room walls and it kind of takes off the bare 


120 MR. PRATT 

look. Gives ’em something to think about too, 
don’t it? ” 

“Yes,” says I; “I should think ’twould. I 
wouldn’t think of much else, seems to me.” 

“Yes,” says he. “Well, I hoped they could 
have ’em to-night afore they went to bed. But 
you explain about ’em in the morning. Tell ’em 
they’re from me and Huldy. I’ll be around after 
breakfast anyhow to fetch some more things from 
the store and see if there ain’t something else I can 
do. Good night.” 

“ Good night,” says I, absent-minded. I 
couldn’t get my mind off them coffin plates. 

He kind of hesitated. 

“ Oh say,” he says. “ Did you eat all of them 
mackerel you had? If you didn’t, and they’re 
likely to spoil, why, I’ll take a couple along home 
with me. Huldy’s dreadful fond of mackerel.” 

“ There ain’t but one left,” says I, “ and ” 

“ Oh well,” he says; “ one ’ll be enough for us. 
We’re awful small eaters.” 

So I trotted out the mackerel and he done it up 
in a piece of the newspaper and went away to his 
dory. I lugged in the presents and laid ’em away 
in the old chest of drawers in the dining room. 
Felt like an undertaker, too, I did, all the time I 


SWEET SIMPLICITY 


1 2 I 


was doing it. I didn’t want the Heavenlies to 
see them relics till they’d ate a good breakfast — 
they was too much for an empty stomach. Then I 
locked up and took the lamp and went to my room. 

After I got undressed I opened the window and 
leaned on the sill and thought. I thought about 
my new job and what I could see was coming to 
me in the way of work, and about Lord James and 
Nate and all. And then I thought of Hartley 
and that Page girl. Martin didn’t act to me like 
a money-grabber. I couldn’t understand it. One 
thing I was sure of, them two was meant for each 
other and it seemed to me that they still liked each 
other. But there was Van Brunt — I liked him 
too. 

Just then a thundering great greenhead bit me 
on the back of the neck and I slammed down the 
sash and turned in on my bale of corncobs. Tired ! 
don’t talk! 


CHAPTER VIII 


MR. SCUDDER’S PRESENTS 

I WAS up the next morning about five and 
pitched in making biscuit and lugging water 
and so on. Lord James comes poking down 
after a while. He looked pretty well used up. 

“ See ’ere, Pratt,” says he. “ W’at they got 
in them blooming beds — bricks? ” 

“ Why? ” says I. “ Was yours hard? ” 

“ ’Ard? Upon me word I’m all full of ’oles, 
like a grater. My back is that sore you wouldn’t 
believe it. And w’at makes ’em so noisy? ” 

“ That’s the husks,” says I. “ They do rustle 
when a feller ain’t used to ’em.” 

“ Rustle ! When I’d go to roll over, upon me 
word the sounds was ’orrifying. Like the water 
washing around that boat of yours, it was. I 
dreamed about being adrift in that awful boat all 
night. About that and ghosts.” 

“Ghosts, hey? Did you dream of ghosts?” 
“ That I did. I could ’ear ’em groaning.” 


MR. SCUDDER’S PRESENTS 123 

“ ’Twas yourself that was groaning,” says I. 
“ A feller that took aboard the cargo of supper 
that you did hadn’t ought to sleep on cornhusks.” 

“I didn’t sleep; not a ’ealthy Christian sleep, 
I didn’t. I say, Pratt, did you ever ’ear that this 
old ’ouse was ’aunted? ” 

“ Well,” says I, “ I don’t know as I ever heard 
that exactly. But old Mrs. Berry died in it and 
then Marcellus lived here alone till he died. 
Seems to me he died in that room of yours, come 
to think of it,” says I, cheering him up. 

He turned pale, instead of the yellow he’d been 
lately. 

“ ’Oly Moses!” says he. “You can’t mean 
it.” 

“ I can mean more than that without half try- 
ing,” I says. “ Yes, I remember now. He did 
die there and they say he died hard. Maybe that 
was on account of the bed though.” 

He was mighty upset. Commenced to tell 
about a friend of his over in “ the old country ” 
who had been butler at a place that was haunted. 
I asked if his friend had ever seen any of the 
spooks. 

“ No,” says he, “ ’e never saw ’em ’imself, but 
it was a tradition in the family. Everybody knew 


124 


MR. PRATT 


it. It was a white lady, and she used to trip about 
the ’ouse and over the lawns nights,” he says. 

“ White, was she? ” says I. “ Well, I suppose 
if she’d been black they wouldn’t have been able 
to see her in the night. Never heard of a colored 
ghost anyway, did you? ” 

“ I mean she was all dressed in white,” he says, 
scornful. “ And they say ’twas ’orrid to see her 
a-gliding around over the grass.” 

“ Want to know! ” says I. “ Well, if you see 
old Marcellus gliding around the hummocks out- 
side, call me, will you? I’d like to see how he 
manages to navigate through the sand. That’s a 
job for a strong, healthy man, let alone a dead 
one.” 

I guess he see I didn’t take much stock in his 
ghost yarns, so he quit and went to getting the 
things on the breakfast table. But he was nervous 
and broke a dish and sprinkled forks and spoons 
over the floor like he was sowing ’em. Pretty 
soon he had to stop and hustle upstairs, for the 
Twins was shouting for their duds. For grown 
men they was the most helpless critters ; His Lord- 
ship was a sort of nurse to ’em, as you might 
say. 

After a while he had ’em dressed and ready and 


MR. SCUDDER’S PRESENTS 


125 


they come down to breakfast. Nate had brought 
over feather beds for them, so they had slept pretty 
well. Van Brunt was rigged up special because 
he was going to Eastwich that forenoon to see 
his girl. 

I’d cooked a whopping big breakfast but ’twas 
only just enough. Van was a regular famine 
breeder and Hartley wa’n’t far astern of him. 
The Natural Life was agreeing with both of ’em 
fine so far. Martin’s cheeks was filling out and 
him and his chum was sun-burned to brick red. 

After breakfast they went out for their usual 
promenade. By and by I heard ’em hailing me 
from the back of the house. When I reached ’em 
they was standing by the barn, with their hands in 
their pockets, and looking as happy and proud as 
if they’d discovered America. 

“ Come here, skipper,” says Van. “ Do you 
see this? ” 

He was pointing at a kind of flat place in the 
lee of the pig sties. ’Twas a sort of small desert, 
as you might say: a bunch or two of beachgrass in 
the middle of it and the rest poverty grass and 
sand. 

“ I don’t see much,” says I. “ What do you 
mean? ” 


126 


MR. PRATT 


“ I mean the location,” says he. “ Here’s 
where we’ll have our garden.” 

I looked at him to see if he was joking. But 
it appeared he wa’n’t. 

“ Garden? ” says I. 

“ Sure,” he says. “ It’s an ideal spot. Sun all 
day long.” 

“ You could make a garden here, couldn’t you, 
Sol? ” asks Hartley. 

“ Maybe I could,” says I, “ if I dug through to 
Chiny and hit loam on t’other side. Otherwise 
you couldn’t raise nothing in this sand but blisters.” 

“ Scudder could bring us loam,” says Van. 
“ We’ve thought of that.” 

“ Starting a garden in July! ” says I. “ What 
do you cal’late to raise — Christmas trees ? ” 

“ Late vegetables, of course,” says Van. 
“ Martin and I intend to stay all through Septem- 
ber. Think of it, Martin; green corn from our 
own plantation. And cucumbers in the morning, 
with the dew on ’em.” 

“ And tomatters already baked in the sun,” I 
says, disgusted. “ You take my advice and buy 
your green stuff off Scudder.” 

But they wouldn’t hear of it. Called me a Jer- 
emiah and so on. 


MR. SCUDDER’S PRESENTS 127 

M All right,” says I, finally. u Have it your 
own way. But who’s going to work this cucum- 
bers and dew farm? ” 

“ Why, we are, of course,” says Van. “ That’s 
part of the game, isn’t it, Martin? Nothing so 
healthful as outdoor work for caged birds like us. 
Maybe we’ll have two gardens, one apiece. Then 
we’ll see who raises the first crop.” 

I could see ’em doing it ! But there was no use 
arguing then. I put my trust in Scudder’s not 
being able to fetch the loam. 

Pretty soon Nate heaves in sight in the dory 
with a cargo of skim milk and store eggs and but- 
ter. Van Brunt and I went down to meet him. 
Van didn’t give him a chance to talk; just as soon 
as the stuff was put on shore he announces that 
Scudder must go right back and drive him over 
to Eastwich. Nate backed and filled, as usual, 
telling how busy he was, and how he hadn’t ought 
to leave, and so on. But Van corks him right up 
with a five-dollar bill and off they went. 

I lugged the milk and butter and the rest of the 
truck up to the house and started in on another 
stretch of work. I’d had a vacation of ten min- 
utes or so; now ’twas time to begin again. After 
I’d cleared up round the kitchen and the like of 


128 


MR. PRATT 


that, I went off down to the Dora Bassett and 
tackled her. Van Brunt had cut away about 
everything but the mast, and I had to rig new hal- 
liards and sheets and downhauls and land knows 
what. Drat that Heavenly! ’twas a two days’ 
job. 

While I was making a start on it Hartley comes 
loafing down from the house. 

“ Skipper,” he says, “ let’s have another one of 
your chowders for lunch, will you? They’re the 
real thing.” 

“ Well, I tell you, Mr. Hartley,” says I, “ if 
we have chowder I’d ought to go and dig the clams 
right now, on account of the tide. And, honest, 
I hate to leave this work I’m on. Still, of course, 
if you say so, why ” 

“What’s the matter with my digging ’em?” 
he says. 

I grinned. “ Why, nothing,” I says, “ so far 
as I know, except that it’s something of a 
job.” 

“Job!” he says. “It’ll be fun. Tell me 
where to go — and what to dig ’em with, and — 
and how to do it.” 

I told him to take the skiff and a clam hoe and 
a couple of buckets and row across to the main- 


MR. SCUDDER’S PRESENTS 129 

land. There was clams all alongshore there, I 
knew. 

“ You go along till you see a lot of little holes 
in the sand,” I says, “ then you dig. Want to 
look out that they ain’t sand-worm holes, nor razor 
fish. And when you begin to dig,” I says, “ you 
want to lay right into it, ’cause the clams are likely 
to be ‘ run-downs ’ and they get under fast. 
So ” 

“ Hold on a minute,” says he. “ How am I 
going to tell a worm-hole from a clam-hole, or a 
clam-hole from a — what was it? — barber fish 
hole?” 

“ Razor fish,” says I. “ Not barber. Well, 
I don’t know how to tell you, exactly. If it’s a 
sand-worm there’s likely to be a little tiny hole 
alongside the regular one; that is, there is some- 
times and sometimes there ain’t. And if it’s razor 
fish — well, I can tell ’em, but I cal’late you’ll have 
to use your own judgment.” 

He said all right, he guessed he’d get along. 
So off he went, and pretty soon him and Lord 
James comes down and gets aboard the skiff. His 
Lordship was loaded with no less than four 
buckets, besides a clam hoe and the garden hoe 
and the stove shovel. ’Twas the most imposing 


MR. PRATT 


130 

clam hunt outfit ever I see. If I’d been a clam 
and see that battery coming my way I’d have took 
to tall timber. 

“ Sure you’ve got hoes and buckets enough? ” 
I asks, sarcastic. 

“ I guess so,” says he, looking around at the 
weapons. “ We might need another pail perhaps, 
but if we do I’ll send' James after it.” 

His Lordship started rowing, taking strokes 
first with one hand and then with the other, and 
the fleet got under way and waltzed, as you might 
say, zigzag across to the main. ’Twas as calm as 
a millpond and they hit land up towards the point 
by the Neck Road. Then the clam slaughterers 
got out and disappeared round behind the point. 
I went on with my rigging. 

It got to be eleven o’clock and no signs of ’em. 
Then twelve; lunch time. Tide was coming in 
fast, you couldn’t have got a clam now without a 
diving outfit. But still all quiet on the Potomac. 
I went up to the house and commenced to slice ham 
and fry potatoes. I had my doubts about that 
chowder. 

Everything was ready by and by and I stepped 
to the door to take an observation. And then I 
see ’em coming, rowing more crab fashion than 


MR. SCUDDER’S PRESENTS 131 

ever. I walked down to the inlet to meet ’em. 
And such sights as they was. Blessed if they 
didn’t look like they’d been through the war — 
Lord James especial. 

“ Hi, Sol ! ” sings out Hartley, as the skiff floats 
in, broadside on. “ My ! but I’m glad to see you. 
Give James a lift with the clams and things, will 
you? I’m done up.” 

He looked it. He was barefoot and bare- 
armed, with his trousers rolled up above his knees 
and his shirt sleeves above his elbows. And the 
valet was the same, and both of ’em soaking wet 
and just plastered with wet sand and clay. 

I give one glance at them bare legs and arms. 

“For the land sakes!” I sings out. “Pull 
down your pants and your sleeves. You’re burned 
to a blister already.” 

And so they was. Tender white skins like 
theirs, wet with salt water and out in that sun ! 

They pulled ’em down looking like they didn’t 
know what for, and come hopping and groaning 
ashore. His Lordship’s back was so lame from 
bending over that he couldn’t hardly straighten up 
without howling. 

“ Did you need the extra bucket? ” I asks. 

“ Why no, I believe not,” says Hartley. “ You 


132 


MR. PRATT 


see I dug for a while and then I went to look for 
better places, and James did the digging. We 
found holes enough, but they didn’t seem to be 
the right kind. Worms, did you call those things? 
Sea serpents, you meant, I guess. I never saw 
such creatures. And there was one place where 
there were millions of holes, but chockful of 
crabs.’* 

“ Um-hum,” says I. “ Fiddlers. You must 
have gone plumb up into the march bank to run 
into them.” 

“ They was ’orrid things,” says Lord James, 
rolling his eyes. “ And they ’ad claws and 
swarmed over my feet. I give you me word I 
was that ” 

“ That’ll do, James,” says Hartley. “ Well, I 
was successful at last, skipper. Struck a place 
where clams were actually in layers just under the 
sand. We turned ’em over with the hoes like 
winking. I pointed ’em out and James picked ’em 
up. Just look at those buckets, will you?” 

I looked at ’em. There was three buckets 
chock, brimming full. 

“ Good land of love! ” says I. “ Them ain’t 
clams — they’re quahaugs.” 

“ They’re clams in New York,” he says. 


MR. SCUDDER’S PRESENTS 


! 33 


“ Maybe so,” says I. “ We call ’em quahaugs 
here. And there’s no quahaugs in this part of 
the bay unless they’ve been bedded. Was there 
any marks around ’em ? ” 

“ There was a lot of sticks stuck up around,” 
he says, “ but we knocked those out of the way.” 

“ You did?” says I. “ Did you leave any of 
the — what you call clams? ” 

“ You bet we didn’t, says he. “ We took the 
last one. Had too much trouble finding ’em to 
leave any.” 

“Humph!” says I. “That’s nice. You’ve 
cleaned out somebody’s private quahaug bed. 
Them quahaugs was all brought over by somebody 
and planted where you found ’em. The sticks was 
to mark the place.” 

“ You don’t mean it? ” he says. 

“ Yes, I do,” says I. “ I cal’late we’ll hear 
from them quahaugs afore long.” 

And sure enough we did, but that comes later. 

On the way up to the house I turns to his Lord- 
ship, who was limping barefoot over the beach- 
grass stubbles, and says I : 

“Ain’t clamming fun?” I says. 

“ My word! ” says he, but it expressed his feel- 
ings all right. 


34 


MR. PRATT 


All the afternoon the clam hunters kept getting 
lamer and lamer and sorer and sorer. Their sun- 
burnt legs and arms was hurting ’em scandalous. 
Hartley flopped into a piazza chair and stayed 
there, and Lord James crept around with his limbs 
spread out like windmill sails. And every time 
he’d bump into a chair or anything you could hear 
him whoop to glory. 

Van Brunt got home about supper time. Scud- 
der rowed him over. I had the quahaug chowder 
made and he ate enough for all hands. Hartley 
was feeling too used up to relish it much, and his 
Lordship didn’t eat nothing. I let him off on the 
dish washing and he went off to the tail end of the 
veranda and went to sleep in a chair. 

After supper Van told about his trip to East- 
wich. Agnes and the Talford girl was well, he 
said, and they and their Fresh Air tribe was com- 
ing to the Island next day for a picnic. 

“By the way, skipper,” says Van; “ Scudder 
says he brought some presents for us last night 
after we went to bed. Where are they? ” 

Thunderation ! I’d forgot all about them 
“ presents.” I’d felt like an undertaker when I 
laid ’em away in that drawer, and now I felt like 
a grave robber as I dug ’em up again. I spread 


MR. SCUBDER’S PRESENTS 


i35 


’em out on the table, coffin plates in the middle 
and wreath on one end and “ What is Home With- 
out a Mother ” on t’other. 

You’d ought to have heard them Heavenlies 
laugh! Nate’s presents certainly made a hit. 
Van he just laid back and roared. 

“ Oh, by Jove ! ” he says, panting. u This is 
too good! This is lovely. Shades of Hannah 
Jane Purvis ! Martin, how the widow of the man 
that didn’t feel like beans would have appreciated 
these, hey? This — this would have been her idea 
of an art gallery.” 

“ Pack ’em away again, Sol,” says Hartley. 
“Now that the relatives have had an opportunity 
to view the remains, the funeral may go on. Bury 
’em quick.” 

“ Bury ’em ? ” says Van. “ Not much. They’re 
too dreamily beautiful. Martin, Pm surprised at 
you. What is home without a family vault, any- 
way? And yet — Hold on!” he says, holding 
up his hand. “ I have an idea. We’ll give them 
to James.” 

“To James?” says me and Martin together. 

“ Of course, to James. James is funereal and 
solemn and dignified. They ought to appeal to his 
taste. They’re right in his line. We will dec- 


3<$ 


MR. PRATT 


orate James’ room with ’em. What is it they were 
warranted to do, skipper, when ‘strung up around?’ 
Oh yes! to be sure. ‘Take away the bare look.’ 
James’ room is bare, now that I think of it. Come 
and join the Memorial Day parade, Martin.” 

He was out in the kitchen, getting the hammer 
and nails and string. Going to decorate the 
valet’s bedroom right off. Hartley laughed and 
said, “ Oh, let the poor devil alone, Van. He’s 
had troubles enough for one day.” But you 
couldn’t stop that Van Brunt critter when he got 
started. 

He makes me load the presents in my arms and 
takes the lamp and leads the way upstairs. And 
then he sets to work and hangs them presents 
round Lord James’ room. He put the coffin plates 
over the washstand at the foot of the bed, and the 
wreath over the head, and hung the picture of 
Marcellus over the looking-glass and the shell 
work by the closet door. 

“ Now,” says he, “ for the motto — the crown- 
ing touch. Where? Where?” 

Finally he hung it on top of the bureau. 

“ Perhaps,” says he, “ its influence may make 
James more motherly; who knows? ” 

Then we went down stairs and he made me 


MR. SCUDDER’S PRESENTS 


i37 


promise to say nothing. Then he was for waking 
his Lordship up and ordering him to bed right 
then, but his chum wouldn’t hear of it. Martin 
said let the poor fellow have his nap out. He 
knew how he felt. So Van give in after awhile. 

Pretty soon Hartley got tired of waiting and 
said he was going to turn in; he was played out, 
he said. Van wanted to wait longer, but he didn’t. 
He went to bed too. At half-past ten or so my 
round of chores was done and I sung out to Lord 
James to wake up and come in because I wanted 
to lock up. But he wouldn’t. 

“ Let me alone,” he says, pleading. “ I’m 
’appy for the first time in ’ours. I’ll lock up, my- 
self, by and by,” he says. So I left him out on 
the piazza and went aloft and turned in. And it 
didn’t take me long to get to sleep, I tell you. 

What woke me up was a howl like an engyne 
tooting. I bounced out of bed like I had springs 
under me, instead of corncobs and ropes. 

Then comes another screech. Then a smashity 
— bang — Smash ! Then more yells, and feet 
going down the hall and falling down stairs. Then 
a door banging and sounds like all the furniture 
on the island was being upset. 

I lit a lamp and got out into the hall. There I 


38 


MR. PRATT 


met the Heavenly Twins just coming from their 
room. They was dressed light and gauzy, same 
as me, but Van had a revolver in his hand and 
Hartley was swinging a chair by the back. 

“ What on earth? ” says Van. 

“ It’s in the dining room, whatever it is,” says I. 

I grabbed up something to use for a club — it 
turned out later to be the littlest joint of Hartley’s 
fish pole — and we tip-toed down stairs to the din- 
ing room door. And that door was locked fast. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE “ FRESH-AIRERS” 

F IRST I tried that door, then Hartley tried 
it, and then Van ; each of us just as soft and 
quiet as possible. Then we listened. Not 
a sound. 

Then Van catches me by the arm and begins to 
pull me and Martin back along the hall. When 
we got to the end, by the parlor door, he whispers, 
low and cautious : 

“We must break the door down. It’s locked on 
the inside. Sol, you put that lamp on the stairs. 
Better turn it down, too. A light gives the other 
man all the advantage if it comes to shooting. 
Now ready, when I say the word. All rush to- 
gether. One — two ” 

“ Wait a minute,” whispers Hartley — he was 
always cool-headed. “Where’s James?” 

“James? ” repeats Van. “What? James?” 
“ James? ” says I. And then I begun to get my 
senses back. Wake a feller up out of a sound 


139 


140 


MR. PRATT 


sleep the way we was and it takes a few minutes 
for him to get on earth again. 

“ James! ” says I. “I’ll bet ” 

“Idiot!” says Van, speaking about himself I 
judge. Then he walks down the hall and gives 
that door a kick. 

“ James,” he sings out. “ Is that you? Open 
this door.” 

For a second or two there wa’n’t a sound. Then 
a voice says, weak and chattery, “ O-o-h, my 
soul ! ” 

“What’s the matter with him?” says Van. 
“ Is he hurt? Where’s the key, skipper? Inside, 
of course. But — but where’s the key-hole?” 

Then I remembered. “ There ain’t any key- 
hole,” I says. “ There’s no lock on the door.” 

“ Then what — ? Come on, Martin.” 

He set his shoulder to the door and commenced 
to shove. Me and Hartley helped, and the door 
begun to open. It opened slow, because the din- 
ing table and two or three chairs and the chest 
of drawers was braced against it. We got in 
finally. 

“ Bring the lamp,” says Hartley. I done it. 
The room was empty. 

“ James! ” hollers Van. “ James! ” 


THE “ FRESH-AIRERS” 


141 

The closet door opens just a crack. Then 
it swung wide and his Lordship, half dressed 
and white as an old clamshell, staggers into the 
room. 

“ Oh! ” says he. “ Oh, Mr. Van Brunt, sir! ” 

He was shaking like a palsy. 

“ What ails you, man? ” says Hartley. “ Speak 
up.” 

The valet rolls his eyes around to me. 

“ I seen it,” he says. “ I seen it plain. It’s 
’im!” 

“Him? Who?” says I. 

“ The ghost. The old cove as owned this 
’ouse. ’E was up in my room a-waiting for 
me.” 

“ What are you talking about? ” asks Van, im- 
patient. I begun to see light, but the Heavenlies 
didn’t — not yet. 

“ ’E was up in my room, sir,” said Lord James, 
wild-like. “ I ’ad me coat and waistcoat off, sir, 
and then I goes over to the mirror intending to see 
if me face looked as ’ot as it felt. And I lights 
my lamp and there ’e was a-glaring at me. ’E 
’ad ’is ’ead through the mirror, sir. And there 
was coffins around, and wreaths. It’s a warning 
to me, sir. I’m a dead man.” 


142 


MR. PRATT 


And then we began to laugh. 

“The presents!” says Van, between roars. 
“ Scudder’s heirlooms. Ho ! ho ! ” 

His Lordship stared at us like he thought we 
was crazy. I more than half pitied him. Martin 
did too, I guess, for he says: 

“ It’s all right, James. Just one of Mr. Van 
Brunt’s jokes. You see ” 

“ But I saw ’im, sir. ’E was there, and there 
was wreaths and coffins ’ung about, and ” 

“It’s all right,” says I. “Here ! come along and 
I’ll show you.” 

But not one step would he stir. A derrick 
wouldn’t have lifted him up them stairs. So I 
quit trying and went aloft and fetched down the 
crayon enlargement and the wreath. Then I set 
out to explain. 

“ Why, you imbecile ! ” says Van. “ Where’s 
your taste for art? We were beautifying your 
room. Taking off the bare look, as per Scudder.” 

James’ color begun to come back. And when 
it come it come thick. He reddened up so you 
could see it even through the sun-burn. 

“ Mr. Van Brunt,” he says, getting madder 
every minute, “I give you notice. I leave to- 
morrow morning.” 


THE “ FRESH-AIRERS” 


M3 


“ Don’t be an idiot — ” begins Van, but his 
Lordship cut him short. 

“ I leave to-morrow morning,” he shouts. 
“ Ain’t it enough to bring me to this Gawd-for- 
saken ’ole and work me ’alf to death and blister 
me from ’ead to foot, without this? I give you 
warning now. I’m going ’ome. And you be 
glad I ain’t ’aving the law on you for this out- 
rage. Us poor servants ’as rights, and ” 

There was more, plenty more. We couldn’t 
shut him up. And the Heavenlies’ explanations 
didn’t count either. He was dead set on leaving 
in the morning. 

Finally, we give it up and went back to bed. 
Lord James said he was going to stay in the 
kitchen all night. Nothing would hire him to 
sleep in Marcellus’ receiving tomb again. 

“Humph! ” says Hartley, as the Twins went 
upstairs, “ it looks to me as if your joke had lost 
us the best valet you ever had, Van.” 

Van cussed under his breath. “He shan’t 
leave,” he said. “ I must keep him somehow. 
He’s invaluable in the city, and we may go back 
there some time. Not for months, though, of 
course,” he adds. 

But in the morning James was worse set than 


144 


MR . PRATT 


ever. He wouldn’t help with breakfast nor noth- 
ing; went aloft at daylight and begun to pack his 
trunk. He was going to leave, that’s all there 
was about it. 

The Twins was pretty blue during breakfast, 
Van about losing his Lordship, and Hartley on 
account of sun-burn, I cal’late. ’Twas another 
elegant day and there was wind enough to keep 
the flies and mosquitoes away from the house. If 
you got in the lee anywheres, though, they was 
laying for you in droves. They didn’t bother me 
much, ’count of my hide being tough and leathery 
and my flavor too salt maybe ; but they was fatten- 
ing up fast on the Heavenlies and James. 

About ten o’clock Scudder shows up with 
the first dory-load of Fresh Airers from the East- 
wich place. Miss Agnes come along with ’em. 
Then the second load come, cap’ned by the Tal- 
ford girl. And then there was doings. 

Them Fresh Air young ones wa’n’t all of a piece 
with Redny, which was a mercy. He was a hand- 
ful in himself, that little sorrel-top was — but there 
was enough like him to keep things stirred up. 
Marcellus’ old shingled prison had to take it that 
day. There must have been some stewing in 
Heaven if old Lady Berry could look down and see 


THE “FRESH-AIRERS” 


1 45 


them youngsters whooping and carrying-on in the 
front parlor. In Mrs. B’s day that parlor was a 
kind of saint’s rest, as you might say, and the only 
time anybody opened its door was when she sailed 
in with the broom and feather duster. And then 
she must have had to navigate by compass, because 
the blinds was always shut tight and the curtains 
drawn and ’twas too dark to see anything. 

Hartley looked out for the children and Van 
Brunt piloted the two girls over the place, point- 
ing out where the garden was going to be some 
day, and where the hens was likely to roost and 
the pig to board. They seemed to be as pleased 
and tickled as he was and thought everything was 
“ lovely ” and “ just too quaint and dear.” I 
was busy cooking and Lord James sulked out in 
the barn. He couldn’t get away until late after- 
noon on account of the train. 

Redny stuck to Hartley like a mud-turtle to a 
big toe. He was right at his heels all the time. 
By and by the pair of ’em come out in the kitchen 
to see me. 

“ Hello, Andrew Jackson,” says I to the boy. 
“ How do you like this part of the country? ” 

“ Great ! ” says he, his eyes snapping. “ Gee, 
ain’t we having the peach of a time I ” 


146 


MR . PRATT 


“ Must feed you well over there,” I says. 
“ Seems to me you’re getting fat already. Board’s 
up to the mark of the Newsboys’ Home, ain’t it? ” 

“ Bet you ! ” says he. “ Chicken, and pie, and 
all the milk you want. And cream — aw say!” 
and he smacked his lips. 

“ How’d you like to live here all the time? ” 

He shook his head. “ Naw,” he says. “ Too 
still. Sometimes I can’t sleep good ’cause it’s so 
still. No El, nor whistles nor fights nor nothing. 
And no Chinks to chuck rocks at. Miss Agony 
won’t let you chuck rocks at folks anyhow.” 

“ Don’t you wish you was back to New York 
with your dad? ” I says. 

“ Not much,” he says. “ The old man used to 
club me too good. When he was full I’d get a 
belting most every day.” 

I looked at Hartley and he at me. Poor little 
shaver! It’s when I see how some folks treat 
children that I get to thinking I could make a bet- 
ter world than this is. 

“Going to run away again?” I asks, after a 
minute. 

“ Naw,” says Redny. “ Not while I’m down 
here. Miss Agony cries over me and I’d rather 
be licked any time than that.” 


THE “ FRESH-A1RERS ” 


M7 


Hartley rumpled the youngster’s hair with his 
fingers. 

“ Sol,” he says, “ there’s good here if you can 
get at it. Too much good to be running to waste. 
Ah hum! Must be rather pleasant to have one 
or two of your own; must make life almost 
worth living. That’s where you and I have 
missed it.” 

“ You’ve got plenty of time yet,” says I. 
“ Maybe you’ll be down in these diggings nine or 
ten year from now with a family of your own.” 

He smiled, kind of sad and one-sided. Then he 
got up and walked out to the piazza. Redny 
hung around a spell, long enough to ask a couple 
million questions. Then he went into the parlor 
with the rest of the young Injuns. 

Pretty soon I heard some one speak. I looked 
through the door way and see the Page girl com- 
ing up the porch steps alone. Hartley stood up 
and lifted his cap. 

“ Where’s Van?” he asked. 

“ He’s down on the beach with Margaret. I 
came back to look after the children.” 

“ They’re all right,” says Martin. “ Playing 
games in the front room.” 

Agnes stopped for a second in the doorway. 


MR. PRATT 


I48 

“ I don’t just understand,” she said, hesitating, 
“ why you are here. Is it true that your health 
is bad? ” 

“ No,” he said, with a little laugh. “ I did feel 
rather gone to seed before I left town, but now I’m 
having the time of my life.” 

“Indeed?” says she. “So far from Wall 
Street? I’m surprised.” 

He didn’t seem to answer — leastways I didn’t 
hear him. Next thing I knew he was standing on 
the top. step. 

“ Please excuse me,” he says, pretty frosty. “ I 
must speak to James.” 

He went off down the steps and out of sight. 
She stood and watched him a minute, and I 
thought she looked puzzled — and solemn. Then 
she went into the parlor. 

We had dinner out doors on the piazza. While 
it was going on the grown-ups didn’t do much talk- 
ing. It’s precious little fun trying to talk against 
a typhoon and an earthquake mixed, and that’s 
what them Fresh Air young ones turned that 
meal into. ’Twas “Hurrah boys! Stand from 
under ! ” from the beginning. When I wa’n’t fill- 
ing up fish plates I was dodging potato skins and 
simijar bouquets. They didn’t fire ’em at me, you 


THE “ FRESH-AIRERS» 


149 


understand, but it’s always the feller that’s looking 
on at the row who gets hit. Redny was cap’n of 
the gun crew. He could chuck a potato skin with 
his left hand and eat with his right and look pious 
and shocked, all at the same time. 

When the Juniors was filled up — and it wa’n’t 
no slouch of a job to get ’em filled — they went off 
to start a riot somewheres else, and the Twins and 
the girls had a chance. Van got to telling about 
Scudder’s presents, and he was funny as usual. 
That Margaret Talford would laugh until I had 
to join in just out of sympathy, even though I was 
up to my eyes in soapsuds and dishwashing. She 
was a jolly girl, that one; pretty and full of snap 
and go. 

Nothing would do but them “ presents ” must 
go on exhibition. So Van lugged ’em down from 
James’ room and lined ’em up on the piazza for 
inspection. He took a stick for a pointer and give 
a lecture about ’em, same as if they was a pano- 
rama, pointing out what he called the “ feeling ” 
and “ atmosphere ” of the shell basket and the 
“ perspective ” of Marcellus in the crayon enlarge- 
ment. He had a good time and so did everybody 
else, especially Miss Talford. 

By and by she clapped her hands. “ Oh ! ” says 


150 


MR. PRATT 


she, “ I’ve got an idea. Did you say your man 
was going to leave you, Mr. Van Brunt? ” 

Van heaved a sigh. “ Yes,” he says. “ I be- 
lieve he is. I fear that James hasn’t the artistic 
temperament. I confess I’m disappointed. He 
certainly looked as if he had it; he was sad and 
soulful and — and — dyspeptic. But no; even the 
‘ Motherless Home ’ didn’t appeal to him. He 
says he’s going to-night.” 

“ I wonder if he would come over to the 
school? ” says she. “ We need a man there, don’t 
we, Agnes ? To help about the place, and look out 
for the boys, and to — well, to protect us.” 

“ Lucky James ! ” says Van. “ But why James ? 
Won’t Martin here do — or — excuse my blushes — 
myself? ” 

But the Talford girl laughed and said he 
wouldn’t do at all. He lacked dignity, she said, 
and didn’t look the part. She asked Miss Page 
if she really didn’t think that James would be just 
the man for them. Agnes said perhaps he would. 
So the four of ’em went away for a walk on the 
beach and to talk it over. 

I’ll bet I called that valet anything but a church 
member and a good feller a dozen times over while 
I was diving into them dishes. I washed and 


THE “ FRESH-AIRERS” 


15 


washed till, seemed to me, I was soaked out fresh 
enough to bile, like a pickled codfish. And when 
the washing was done there was the wiping. I 
laid out a bale or so of dish towels and pitched in. 

Pretty soon somebody says, “ Mayn’t I help? ” 

I swung around and there was Agnes Page. 
Nice to look at, she was, too. 

“ Can’t I help you, please? ” says she, picking 
up a towel. 

“Land sakes, no!” says I. “You’ll spoil 
your fine clothes. Besides I’ve got sort of used 
to it by this time; my arm goes round of itself, 
like a paddle wheel.” 

She laughed and grabbed a chowder plate and 
commenced to wipe. She done fairly well for 
anybody who hadn’t practiced much, but she never 
would have won the cup for speed. One dish 
every five minutes is all right, maybe, if you’re 
getting paid by the year, but — However, I 
judged her ma kept hired help to home. I won- 
dered what she’d done with Hartley. 

By and by she says, “ Mr. Pratt, how long do 
you expect to stay here? ” 

“ Here? ” says I. “ On Horsefoot — on Ozone 
Island? Land knows. Long’s the Heavenlies — 
that is, long’s Mr. Van Brunt and Mr. Hartley 


52 


MR. PRATT 


stay here, I guess. It’s a restful place, ain’t it? ” 
says I, reaching for the next stack of dishes. 

She smiled. “ No doubt they find it so,” she 
says. “ How do you like the Natural Life? ” 

“ Who — me? Oh, I cal’late I shall like it tip- 
top when I get a little more used to it — that is, if 
I last. I was oldest boy in a family of nine, 
and dad died young, so I was brought up Natural, 
as you might say. It’s been some time, though, 
since I had so many hours of straight-along, pitch- 
in-and-hustle Naturalness in the day’s run; been 
getting artificial and lazy of late years, I guess. 
But I’m tough, and I’ll be all right and used 
to it pretty soon — getting lots of practice. By 
the way,” I says, “ who was it that sent ’em 
here?” 

“ Who? ” says she, looking surprised. “ Sent? 
I don’t understand.” 

“ Was Mr. Van Brunt and his chum sent here 
by the doctor, or who? ” 

“ Why, I didn’t know they were sent at all. I 
think they came here of their own accord.” 

“Humph!” says I, considering. “Was any 
of their folks ever took this way? Does it run 
in the families? ” 

That seemed to tickle her and I guess she under- 


THE “ FRESH-AIRERS " 


*53 

stood what I meant. But she didn’t answer the 
question; went on dry-polishing the pickle dish. 
Then says she, kind of accidental on purpose : 

“ Is Mr. Hartley’s health improving? ” 

“ Oh yes ! ” says I. “ He’s picking up some, 
’specially in his appetite. He ain’t up to Van 
Brunt in that line yet, though. Van eats for 
three ; Hartley’s only up to the one-man-and-a-boy 
mark so far. He’d do better if he didn’t have 
them blue streaks of his. Seems to have some- 
thing on his mind.” 

“ Perhaps he’s troubled about leaving his busi- 
ness,” she suggests, looking sideways at the pickle 
dish. 

“ Guess not,” says I, looking sideways at her. 
“ I don’t think I’ve heard him mention business 
since he’s been down. No, ’tain’t that, according 
to my notion. He ain’t in love, is he? ” 

She looked at me then pretty hard; but I was 
as wooden-faced as a cigar sign. 

“ Dear me, no,” she laughs, brisk. “ I guess 
not. What made you think that? ” 

“ Oh, nothing,” says I. “ I ain’t ever been 
took that way myself, but it seemed to me he had 
all the symptoms. Didn’t know but he was fret- 
ting about some young woman. He’s a fine chap, 


i 54 MR. PRATT 

that young Hartley. It ’ll be a lucky girl that gets 
him.” 

She didn’t say much more, but she looked at 
me every once in a while as if she was wondering. 

I never let on. I was as innocent and easy as the 
cat with the cream on its whiskers. I had a sneak- 
ing hope that I might have boosted Hartley a little 
mite, and I felt good down one side. Then I 
thought of Van, and I felt mean all up the other. 

After a spell the Twins and Miss Talford hap- 
pened along, and what a time Van Brunt made 
when he see his girl helping me wipe dishes. 

“ Well, well! ” he says. “ Is this the way you 
hurry back to ‘ see what the dear children are 
doing? ’ Sol, you old fascinator, how do you do 
it? Martin and I fell in love with him at first 
sight, Miss Talford; and now look at Agnes.” 

“ Hold on there,” says I. “ Don’t spread it 
to thick. I ain’t got but one hat that ’ll do for 
Sunday, and I want that to fit me. I was giving 
Miss Page a few lessons in housekeeping, and 
you’d ought to thank me for that, Mr. Van Brunt.” 

It seems the Talford girl had seen James and he 
had agreed to go to Eastwich with ’em. ’Twas a 
good chance for him, a soft job and all that. 
Truth to tell, I guess he was kind of sorry about 


THE “ FRESH-AIRERS ” 


55 


parting from Van altogether, the gleaning might 
not be so good in his next boss’s berry pas- 
ture. 

So about six o’clock Scudder come with his dory 
and the picnic broke up. The Fresh-Airers were 
pretty nigh played out by this time. The smaller 
children was nodding with their heads on the 
shoulders of the bigger ones, and I even had to 
tote two of the littlest in my arms down to the 
beach. But they was all full fed and sun-burned 
and dirty and happy, and they’d had the bulliest 
time in their poor, pinched-up little lives. 

“ Well, good-by, Andrew Jackson,” says I to 
Redny. “ Had good time enough to want to 
come again, have you ? ” 

“ Sure thing,” says he. 

“ Like it as well here as you do over at the 
school? ” 

“ Yup,” he says. “ Ain’t nobody to plug 
potato skins at over there.” 

He was a smart little coot. Had the makings 
of a man in him if you dug down far enough to 
get at it. 

Lord James comes down to the shore tugging 
his trunk behind him. 

“ So long, Hopper,” says I. “ Shall I give 


MR . PRATT 


,56 

your love to Marcellus’ spook if it comes gliding 
again? ” 

He looked at me very solemn. “ You’d better 
come too,” he says. “ You take my advice and 
leave this blooming island now w’ile you ’ave the 
chance. There’ll come a time,” says he, “ when 
you won’t ’ave it.” 

He climbed into the dory and set down all 
huddled up in the stern with his trunk between his 
knees. Scudder begins rowing and they moved 
off. 

“ There,” says Van, referring to his Lordship, 
“ goes the final tie that binds us to a sordid past. 
Shall we sing ‘ The Last Link is Broken,’ Martin? 
Or have you something more appropriate to sug- 
gest, skipper? ” 

“ I have for myself,” says I. “ It’s ‘ Work 
for the Night is Coming.’ ” 

And I hurried up to the house to get supper. 


CHAPTER X 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK 

T HE Heavenlies was late down to breakfast 
next morning, owing, I cal’late, to the loss 
of Lord James. I could hear ’em hailing 
each other, asking, “ What’s become of my golf 
stockings ? ” and the like of that. Trouble seemed 
to be that they had too many clothes. If they’d 
been limited to one suit for Sunday and a pair of 
overalls to cover up the ruins the rest of the week, 
like I was, they’d have got along better. 

But they was rigged at last and at breakfast was 
chipper as a pair of mackerel gulls. They com- 
menced to talk garden. Consarn ’em, I hoped 
they’d forgot that. 

“ The loam business is all right, Sol,” says Van. 
“ Scudder will bring us loam at three dollars a boat 
load. He says it ’ll take about fifteen boat loads.” 

u He'does, hey?” says I. “At three dollars 
per? That’s generous of him. Anything else? ” 
“ Yes. He is to continue to bring us milk. We 


iS7 


MR. PRATT 


158 

have decided that perhaps for the present we had 
better not keep a cow.” 

Small favors thankfully received. I was glad 
that milking wa’n’t going to be added to the gen- 
eral joyfulness. 

“ I think that’s a nice far-sighted decision,” says 
I. “Unless you could learn your cow to eat sea- 
weed, I don’t see ” 

“ Oh, Scudder could bring us hay,” says Van. 
“ And we could give the animal the spare vege- 
tables from the garden.” 

“ Twould be a long time between meals for the 
poor critter, I’m afraid,” says I. “ How much is 
Nate charging for the milk? ” 

“ Nine cents a quart. That’s only one cent 
more than you have to pay in New York, and, 
when you consider how far he has to bring it, I 
call it dirt cheap.” 

Well, ’twas about as cheap as the garden dirt, 
but I didn’t say nothing. 

“ We’re going to raise chickens too,” says Hart- 
ley. “ Scudder, so Van says, will sell us live Ply* 
mouth Rocks at thirty cents a pound. Skipper, you 
might fix up the poultry yard in your spare time.” 

In my spare time. There was a joke in that, 
but it wa’n’t so intended. 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK 


159 


Then Van Brunt began to preach “ pig.” 
Seems Nate had told him that the one thing need- 
ful to turn Ozone Island into a genuine Natural 
Life heaven was a pig, and of course he, Nate, 
had the only pig in creation that was worth buy- 
ing. 

“ He showed it to me the other morning,” says 
Van. “ The prettiest little black and white fel- 
low you ever saw, Martin. Miss Talford saw 
him yesterday because she came over, and she said 
he was a dear. You might be repairing a sty for 
him in your odd moments, Sol.” 

My odd moments, and my even ones too, was 
pretty well filled up for the next few days. The 
Heavenlies loafed and superintended and smoked 
and fished and ate. All I had to do was to turn 
out with the gulls, and cook breakfast, and clear 
away, and wash dishes, and build hen yards, and 
fix up a leaky pig pen, and get ready them blessed 
gardens, and sweep and dust, and dig clams, and 
make beds, and get dinner, and sail a boat, and 
chop wood, and bundle up washing for Nate to 
take to Huldy Ann, and scour knives, and — and — 
well, there was plenty more. Seven or eight hun- 
dred odd jobs have slipped my memory. 

The gardens was ready for planting on a 


i6o 


MR. PRATT 


Wednesday. Nate fetched over the last dory load 
of loam the night afore and I spread it afore I got 
supper. The chickens and the hog was to come 
on Thursday. I was to take the skiff and go after 
’em, Nate being engaged to cart a carry-all load 
of boarders to Ostable. Huldy Ann was to have 
the live stock at the shore ready for me. 

“How’s the menagerie coming, Nate?” I 
asked. “ In cages or on the hoof? ” 

“ Oh, I’ll box ’em for you, Sol,” he says. “ The 
hens in one box and the pig in another. The pig’s 
pretty thin — I mean young, so he won’t be no 
heft to you.” 

Wednesday morning the Heavenly gardening 
begun. One patch was for Van Brunt and the 
other for Hartley. They had seeds by the peck, 
more or less, brought over by Scudder’s express 
and charged for at undertaker’s prices. The 
Twins started in with a vengeance. I showed ’em 
how. For once I was superintendent and the job 
suited me fine — nothing would have tickled me 
more, unless ’twas to turn in and take a nap. 

Van takes one hoe and Hartley the other. Each 
of ’em was actually round-shouldered from the 
weight of the seeds in their pockets. They had 
cucumber seeds, and melon seeds, and land knows 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK 16 


what. Wonder to me was they didn’t try oranges 
and pineapples. And it the middle of July! 

“ Now Martin,” says Van. “ Here goes ! Bet 
you fifty I get the first cucumber.” 

“ I’ll go you,” says Martin, shucking his jacket. 
“ Sol, what do I do next? ” 

I showed him. I started ’em even on cucum- 
ber beds. They hoed like they went by steam. 
You never see such ambitious farmers in your life 
as they was — just then. 

“ Kind of hard work, ain’t it? ” says I, watch- 
ing their front hair get damp and stick to their 
foreheads. 

“ Work ?” says Van. “ This is recreation, 
man!” 

“ All right,” I says. “ Heave ahead and recre- 
ate. I’ve got to work, myself.” 

So I went in and swept out the dining room. 
Once in a while, through the open window, I’d 
get a sight of ’em laying into the cucumber beds, 
with the sun blazing down. I grinned. When the 
boot’s been on one leg too long it’s kind of nice 
to see somebody else’s corns get pinched. 

When they come into dinner they was just slop- 
ping over with joy. Gardening was more fun 
than a barrel of monkeys. But I noticed that when 


MR. PRATT 


162 

Van got up from the table he riz kind of “ steady 
by jerks ” as if he had kinks in his back, and Mar- 
tin moved his shoulders slow and easy and said 
“ Ouch! ” under his breath when he reached too 
far. 

They didn’t seem to be in any real hurry to get 
back to work, either. Stayed on the porch, and 
smoked two cigars instead of one. I had to 
chuck out a hint about getting them seeds covered 
up quick afore they’d leave their chairs. Then 
they went, and I could see the hoes moving; but 
they moved slower. 

They turned in right after supper, which was 
unusual. Next morning I didn’t hear a word 
about gardens. The conversation was pretty lim- 
ited and doleful, being separated with grunts and 
groans, so to speak. When Van Brunt dropped 
his napkin he hollered to me to come and pick it 
up, and Hartley fed with his left hand and 
kept the right in his jacket side pocket. They 
didn’t seem to enjoy that meal half so much as 
I did. 

“ Well,” says I, to brighten things up; “ I cal’- 
late them cucumbers is ready to eat, pretty nigh, 
by this time. Started on your corn yet? No? 
Well, you mustn’t lose no time. It’s late in the 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK ,63 

season now. Come along with me and I’ll get you 
going.” 

I headed for the door as I spoke. They looked 
at each other again. 

“ It’s pretty cloudy for planting, isn’t it? ” asks 
Hartley. “ We might be caught in the rain, you 
know.” 

“ Rain your granny! ” says I. “ Them clouds 
is nothing but heat fog. It’ll burn right off.” 

“ Wait till we finish our cigars, skipper,” says 
Van. 

“ No,” says I. “ You can smoke and plant at 
the same time. Smoke ’ll drive away the mos- 
quitoes.” 

They got up then and followed me out. The 
hoes was laying by the beds and I handed ’em one 
apiece. They took ’em, not with what you’d call 
enthusiasm, but more the way the boy took the 
licking — believing ’twas more blessed to give than 
to receive. The cucumber beds was begun beauti- 
ful, the first hills rounded up fine and lovely. But 
the tail end ones looked like the pauper section of 
the burying ground, more useful than ornamental. 
I showed ’em how to plant the corn and went 
away, leaving ’em leaning on their hoes, with a 
kind of halo of mosquitoes around their heads. 


164 


MR. PRATT 


My talk about smoke was more or less sarcastic; 
the mosquitoes on Horsefoot Ozone was smoke- 
cured and fire-proof. 

I got the breakfast work done about ten o’clock 
and then ’twas time to go after the pig and the 
hens. I took the skiff oars out of the barn and 
then walked around by the gardens to see how 
things was getting on. There laid the hoes by the 
places where the corn-hills was intended to be, but 
there wa’n’t any corn-hills nor any Heavenly gar- 
deners either; not a sign of ’em. I hailed once 
or twice but didn’t get any answer. Then I went 
on down to the skiff. And there they was, 
sprawled out in the shade of the pines, as com- 
fortable as you please. 

“ Hello, skipper,” says Van Brunt, turning over 
on one elbow. “ We’ve been waiting for you. 
We’re going with you after the livestock.” 

“ You are? ” says I. “ Got your farming done 
so early? ” 

“ No-o,” he drawls. “ Not precisely. The 
fact is, Sol, Hartley and I have decided that agri- 
cultural labors are not ” 

“Labors?” says I, shoving the skiff into the 
water. “Thought ’twas recreation.” 

“ For definition see dictionary,” he says. “ It’s 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK 165 

a painful condition, not a theory, with us, just 
now. Martin and I are convinced that what we 
need is a sea voyage. Come on, Martin.” 

Hartley got up, pretty average gingerly, and 
they climbed into the skiff. I pushed off and 
begun to row. 

“ Well,” I says, after a minute or two, “ it ain’t 
for me to suggest anything, but, just for greens — 
like the old woman stewed the burdock leaves — I’d 
like to mention that if you want vegetables with 
the dew, and not icicles on ’em, you’d better be 
getting the rest of them seeds into the ground. 
What’s the present standing of that cucumber 
bet?” 

Van didn’t open his eyes. “ You win it,” he 
says, lazy. 

I stopped rowing and looked at him over my 
shoulder. 

“ Meaning — what? ” says I. 

“ Just that. You win the bet. Likewise you 
cultivate the cucumbers. Martin and I, in con- 
vention assembled, have nominated you for Secre- 
tary of Agriculture. We resign.” 

I’d been expecting it. And I’d made up my 
mind what to say. But I hated to say it. Thinks 
I, “ I’ll wait till I get back to Ozone.” 


1 66 


MR . PRATT 


So I didn’t answer, but went to rowing again. 
The tide was going out fast and ’twas a hard pull, 
three of us in that little skiff, but by and by we 
reached the main. And there was Scudder’s hired 
boy waiting for us. 

“ Hello,” says I. 44 Where’s Huldy Ann — 
Mrs. Scudder, I mean? ” 

44 She couldn’t come,” said the boy. 44 But I 
fetched the hens and things. Here they be.” 

He had the hens — a dozen of ’em — jammed into 
one lath coop. The door of it was fastened with 
a shaky wood button. 

“ Handle ’em kind of careful,” says he. 44 That 
button undoes itself sometimes.” 

44 Where’s the pig? ” says Hartley. 

41 Here he is.” 

We could hear him. He wa’n’t in a box at all, 
as he’d ought to have been according to contract, 
but setting in the sand with his hind legs tied 
together with string. He was whirling in circles 
with his tail for a pivot, so to speak, and he seemed 
to be mainly squeal. Little he was, and thin — 
’peared to me to be thin as Nate’s milk of human 
kindness — but the Heavenlies fell down and wor- 
shipped him like he was a hog angel. 

44 Humph! ” says I. 44 Is that the 4 dear ’? ” 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK 167 

“ That’s the dear,” says Van, patting him at 
long distance. 

Well, he weighed four pound and cost six dol- 
lars, so that’s dear enough for anybody. 

I loaded the critters into the skiff — the pig fairly 
sung psalms while I was doing it — and then the 
Twins climbed aboard. 

“ All right, skipper,” says Van. “ Shove off.” 

“ Just a minute,” says I. “ What am I going 
to do — take the next train ? This transport seems 
to be pretty well loaded.” 

It was. Van Brunt was on the amidships 
thwart. Hartley was up in the bow, with the pig 
between his knees. The chicken coop was piled in 
the stern. I ain’t no dime show dwarf, and where 
I was going to stow myself was too much for 
me. 

“ Humph ! ” says Van. “ It does look standing 
room only. Here, skipper ; you kneel on the back 
seat. I’ll row.” 

I didn’t exactly kneel, but I straddled across the 
stern somehow, with the butt end of the hen roost 
in my lap and my feet over each rail just clear of 
the wet. 

Nate’s boy shoved us into deep water. He 
had to take off his shoes and stockings to do it, 


168 MR . PRATT 

and he was laughing so that he made mighty poor 
headway. 

“You pesky young one!” says I, losing pa- 
tience. “ If you don’t tend to your job I’ll get 
out and duck you. What are you giggling at? ” 

“ I ain’t giggling,” says he. “ I’m pushing. 
Ugh! Haw! haw! Ugh! There you be!” 

He gave us a final shove and then went back 
and rolled around in the bushes. Somebody was 
having a good time if we wa’n’t. 

We moved off stately and slow, like an ocean 
liner leaving her dock. We didn’t have any band, 
but the pig and hens furnished music. The skiff’s 
rail was almost a-wash and my heels dipped on 
every little wave. 

Van rowed like a good one till he got about two- 
thirds of the way across. Then the tide got a grip 
on us and he commenced to go slower, and groan. 
He’d miss a stroke and we’d swing half way 
around. We was going broadside on most of the 
time. 

By and by Hartley spoke up. 

“ What makes this pig kick so? ” says he, like 
’twas some kind of a conundrum. The critter 
seemed to be doing his best to answer it, but his 
language wa’n’t understandable. 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK 169 

“You look out he don’t kick that string off his 
legs,” I hollers. I had to holler to make myself 
heard above the choir. 

He bent forward and looked down. “ Why ! ” 
says he. “ I’ll be shot if he hasn’t done it al- 
ready.” 

“ Hang on to him then ! ” I yells. “ For the 
land sakes don’t let him loose.” 

Van Brunt gives a final groan and stops the 
oars. 

“ No use, skipper,” he says. “ My cucumber 
recreation has put me out of the race. I wouldn’t 
row another stroke for the control of the Standard 
Oil. You’ll have to be shofer the rest of the 
way.” 

I didn’t know what a “ shofer ” was and I don’t 
know now; but I could see trouble coming. 

“Set where you be!” I shouted. “Don’t 
move. Thunderation ! There you go!” 

The pesky idiot had stood up to stretch, leaving 
the oars in the rowlocks. Course the skiff swung 
broadside on and a wave knocked the starboard 
oar overboard. Hartley see it going and made a 
jump and a grab. He missed it, you might know, 
but he let go of the pig. 

I ripped out a lively kind of speech and dove 


170 


MR. PRATT 


for the port oar. The hen-coop was In my way 
and it and me went headfirst into Van Brunt’s 
shirt front. When I got out of the mix-up, both 
oars was ten yards astern, the pig was doing three 
laps a minute over us and under the thwarts, and 
the hens was all out of jail and proud of it. Like- 
wise we was drifting out to sea. 

“ Well! ” says I. “ This is nice, ain’t it? Get 
out, you varmint ! ” This last part was to a 
pullet that was flapping on my shoulders. 

Would you believe it, all them Heavenly loons 
done was to laugh. They just roared. 

“ Ho! ho!” whoops Hartley. u Oh, dear 
me! This is worth the price of admission.” 

“ Ha ! ha ! ” cackles Van, puffing for breath, and 
shoving the pig out of his lap. “ This is the best 
ever! The floating garden of Eden! Or the 
Ark! Say, Martin; I begin to sympathize with 
Noah.” 

“ Noah sent out a dove, if I remember right,” 
says Hartley. “ Wonder if it would work with a 
chicken? Where’s our Ararat, skipper?” 

I was mad clean through. Here was twice that 
I’d been made a fool of on salt water. I wa’n’t 
used to it and it hurt. 

“ The Ark was afloat for forty odd days; you 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK , 7 i 

want to remember that” says I. “ And this 
skiff won’t float forty minutes, loaded the way she 

is, if she drifts outside that point.” 

“ Then she musn’t drift there,” says Van, cheer- 
ful. “ I don’t want to get wet — not now, with 
James gone. This is the only presentable suit I’ve 
got left. If this is wrecked you’ll have to press 

it, Sol.” 

My, but I was hopping! Talking about press- 
ing clothes, and us next door to going to the 
bottom ! 

“ I’ll press nothing,” says I. “ And I’ll say 
right now, Mr. Van Brunt, that I won’t ’tend to 

them gardens. You hear ” 

Van waved his hand. “ Your salary from now 

on,” he says, “ will be ” 

“ No, it won’t. My salary’s big enough. It’s 
me that’s short — short about twenty-six hours out 
of the twenty- four. If I was two men I might do 
what’s needful, but as ’tis I can’t. I like you both 
first-rate — when you ain’t too crazy — but either 
you’ll have to get me a helper, or I’ll have to quit. 
That is, if we get out of this mess alive, which ain’t 
likely.” 

All the time I was preaching this way I was 
tugging at the ’midships thwart. Finally I got it 


172 


MR. PRATT 


loose and shoved it over the stern. I was going 
to try to scull with it. 

The Heavenlies was completely upset. Not 
by the fear of drowning — drat ’em. I don’t cal’- 
late they was afraid of anything — but my talk of 
quitting seemed to knock ’em silly. 

“By Jove! you know,” says Van. “This is 
serious, skipper. You can’t mean it.” 

“ You bet I can! ” I says, sculling like all pos- 
sessed with one arm, and fighting pullets with the 
other. 

“ You’re not going,” says Van, decided. 
“You’re — simply — not. Is he, Martin?” 

“ I should say not,” says t’other Twin. “ Sol, 
if you want more money — or assistants — or any- 
thing, why, all right. But we want you. And 
we’re going to keep you.” 

“ That’s settled then,” says Van, quick. 
“ What kind of help do you want — and how 
many? ” 

“Well,” I says, cooling down a mite — of 
course I was pleased to find they liked me 
so well. “ Well,” I says, “ if you could get 
somebody to cook and help ’round the house, 
maybe I ” 

“A cook?” says Van. “Good! We get a 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK 


i73 


cook — two cooks — ten of ’em, if you say so. And 
we get ’em quick.” 

“ Let’s get ashore first,” says I. “ I’ve got to 
make the point there or we’ll get ” 

“ Our finish, hey? ” he says, ending the sentence 
for me. “ All right; make the point.” Then he 
got out a cigar and went to smoking. 

But I wa’n’t by no means sure we would make 
the point. ’Twas the east’ard end of Ozone 
Island I was aiming for. The tide set in strong 
there and I could see that the skiff would pretty 
nigh hit the beach, if I had luck. 

We zig-zagged along. Pretty soon we got to 
where the waves was running higher. They com- 
menced to slop into the boat. 

“ She’ll go under, sure’s you’re born,” says I. 
“ If I can only keep her up till we get into shoal 
water.” 

“ I seem to have acquired the castaway habit,” 
says Van. “ Once in that other boat of yours, Sol, 
and now in this one. I must swear off. This is 
getting monotonous.” 

The swells run bigger as we neared the point. 
The skiff was half full and the slopping and the 
motion stirred up the menagerie. Such squealing 
and squawking and flapping you never heard nor 


174 


MR. PRATT 


saw. Them hens was all over us and the pig 
underneath. 

We riz on a wave and begun to capsize. 

“ Here we go! ” I yelled. “ Stand by! ” 

Over we went. The hens had the best of us in 
a way — they could fly after a fashion. I wished I 
could. Lucky the water wa’n’t more than waist 
deep. 

I ploughed through the sand and undertow and 
got to the beach. Hartley come next, toting the 
pig by one leg. The “ dear ” wriggled loose and 
headed for the pines, hurrahing like a saw-mill. 
The most of the hens had gone on ahead. 

“Humph!” says somebody. “You’re pretty 
wet, ain’t you? ” 

I rubbed the wet sand out of my eyes. There 
on a sand hummock in front of us was a girl. A 
queer looking female she was, too. Reminded me 
some of Hannah Jane Purvis, being built on the 
same spare lines and having the same general look 
of being all corners. She had on a striped calico 
dress, stripes running up and down, and her belt 
went across the middle of the stripes as straight as 
if ’twas laid out with a spirit level. I couldn’t see 
her face good, for she had on a sunbonnet and 
’twas like peeking at her through a nail keg, but 


THE VOYAGE OF THE ARK 


i75 


she had snapping black eyes and moved quick, 
which wa’n’t Hannah Jane’s way by a good sight. 
I stood and stared at her. 

“ I say you’re pretty wet, ain’t you? ” she says 
again, louder. “Why don’t you say something? 
Are you hard of hearing? ” 

Before I could get my bearings enough to 
answer, Van Brunt comes dripping alongside. He 
was still holding the cigar stump in his mouth and 
he had one of the Plymouth Rocks — the rooster, 
as it happened — squeezed tight under one arm. 

“ Well, skipper,” he says, “ the Ark has 
stranded and the animals may now — Hello ! 
What? Who?” 

He looked at the girl and she at him. Then he 
says brisk — 

“ Can you cook? ” 


CHAPTER XI 


EUREKA 

W HATEVER that girl might have ex- 
pected from us, I guess she didn’t 
expect that. It set her back so that she 
couldn’t speak for a full minute ; which was some- 
thing of a miracle, as I found out later. 

“ Can I what? ” she says, finally. 

“ Can you cook? ” asks Van Brunt again. 

“ Can I — ” Then she turns to me. “ He 
ought to be attended to right off,” she says, refer- 
ring to Van. “ Some of that wet has soaked in 
and he’s got water on the brain. Take that poor 
rooster away from him afore he squeezes it to 
death.” 

Van laughed and dropped the rooster. I cal’late 
he’d forgot that he had it. “ Let me explain,” he 

begun. “ You see, we ” 

Hartley spoke then. “ Wait a minute,” says he, 
laughing. “ I suggest that we adjourn to the house 
and get into some dry clothes. Then we can talk 
business, if the young lady is willing.” 

176 


EUREKA 


177 


The girl looked at him. 44 Business is what I’m 
here for,” says she. “ Which of you three is the 
"quahaug one? ” 

“ The which? ” says I; and the Heavenlies both 
said the same. 

44 Which of you is the quahaug one? I’ve got 
some business to talk with him.” 

“ Martin,” says Van, grave, and turning to his 
chum. 44 Are you a 4 quahaug one ’ ? ” 

44 I guess he is,” says I. I was beginning to see 
a light. Hartley’s clamming cruise was turning 
out as I’d expected. 

44 Humph! ” says the girl. 44 Well, you made a 
clean job, Lys says. About three buckets and a 
half, wa’n’t they? ” 

You never see a man so puzzled as Hartley, 
unless ’twas Van Brunt. They looked at each 
other, at the girl, and then at me. I explained. 

“ I judge ’twas this young woman’s quahaug 
bed that you and James cleaned out t’other day,” I 
says. “ You remember I told you we’d hear from 
them quahaugs later.” 

44 Oh!” says Martin. 44 Awfully sorry, I’m 
sure. I hope you’ll permit me to pay for ” 

She bobbed the sunbonnet up and down. 
44 That’s what I come for,” says she. 44 They was 


MR. PRATT 


178 

my brother Lycurgus’s quahaugs. He’d just 
bedded ’em. Quahaugs is worth a dollar a 
bucket this time of year. That’s three dollars and 
a half. I won’t charge you for the sticks, though 
what on earth you done with them is more’n I can 
make out, and Lys says the same.” 

Van was grinning from ear to ear. T’other 
Twin reached into his pocket and fished out a sop- 
ping-wet pocketbook. 

“Will the three fifty be sufficient?” he asks, 
troubled. “ I’m really very sorry. It was a mis- 
take, and ” 

“ Oh, it’s all right,” says the girl. “ You didn’t 
know no better. Pa says fools and children ain’t 
accountable. You’d better spread that money out 
to dry ’fore you pay me with it. And you’d better 
get dry yourself or you’ll catch cold. I can wait 
a spell, I guess. Why don’t you go after your 
boat, Mister?” she says to me. “You’ll lose it 
first thing you know.” 

I looked where she pointed, and there was the 
skiff stranded bottom up on the tip end of the point 
flat. I ran after it, waded in and hauled it ashore. 
The Heavenlies hurried up to the house. When I 
come back the girl was waiting for me. 

“ I’ll walk along up with you,” she says. “ Say, 


EUREKA 


179 


you’re Solomon Pratt, ain’t you? I heard about 
you. Nate Scudder told pa. He said he’d let 
this place to Sol Pratt and a couple of crazy men 
from New York. I thought sure you’d swear 
when the boat upset, but you didn’t. You 
must belong to the church. What are you — 
Methodist? ” 

I grinned. “ So you think a ducking like that 
would be apt to make a man swear, do you?” 
says I. 

“ Yup, if he hadn’t got religion. Pa’d have 
cussed a blue streak. You’d ought to hear him 
when he has his nervous dyspepsy spells. Did you 
say you was a Methodist? ” 

“ No-o, I guess I didn’t. Let’s see. Did you 
say your name was Dusenberry? ” 

She stopped and kind of fizzed, like a teakettle 
biling over. “Sakes alive ! ” she snaps. “ I hope 
not ! Do I look as if I was carting a name like that 
around? My name’s Sparrow — Eureka Fiorina 
Sparrow. What’s the matter — anything? ” 

“ No, not ’special. You kind of fetched me up 
into the wind, striking me head on so, unexpected. 
Just say that again and say it slow. Eureka Pe- 
runa — what was it? ” 

She switched around and stared at me hard. 


i8o 


MR. PRATT 


“ Eureka — Fiorina — Sparrow,” says she, slow and 
distinct. “ Want me to spell it for you? ” 

“ No, thanks. You might mix me up some if 
you did. I had to leave school early. Any more 
in your family? ” 

“ Yup. Seven of us, counting me — and pa 
makes eight.” 

“ What’s their names? ” 

“ Well, there’s Lycurgus and Editha and 
Ulysses and Napoleon and Marguerite and Dewey 
— he’s the baby. Great names, ain’t they? Pa’s 
doings, naming ’em that way was. Pa says there’s 
nothing like hitching a grand name to a young one ; 
gives ’em something to live up to, he says. His 
own name’s Washington, but he ain’t broke his 
back living up to it, far’s as I can see; and ma used 
to say the same afore she died.” 

“ O-o-h! ” says I. “ I see.” I knew who she 
was now. I hadn’t lived around Wellmouth so 
very long, but I’d heard of Washington Sparrow. 
He lived in a little slab shanty off in the woods 
about a mile from Scudder’s, and had the name of 
being the laziest man in town. 

We’d reached the house by this time and I left 
Eureka Fiorina in the kitchen and went to my 
room to change my duds. When I come down the 


EUREKA 


181 


Twins was in the kitchen, too, and I could hear the 
Sparrow girl’s tongue going like a house afire. 
Martin had just paid her for the quahaugs and she 
was telling how scarce they’d got to be in the bay, 
and how her brother had worked to get a few 
bedded and how he’d sold a couple of quarts to the 
Baptist minister’s wife and what she said about 
’em, and so on. The Heavenlies seemed to be 
enjoying every minute of it, judging by the way 
they laughed. 

“ Introduce us to the lady, skipper,” says Van, 
when I come in. 

I done the honors. “ She’s one of Washy Spar- 
row’s tribe — I mean family,” says I. “ They live 
over in the woods hereabouts.” 

“ I guess tribe’ll do,” says Eureka, cutting in 
quick. “ There’s pretty near enough of us to make 
a town, seems sometimes. You’d think so if you 
had to get meals for ’em, same’s I do.” 

“You! ” says I. “Do you cook for all that 
gang? How old are you? ” 

“ Seventeen last March. Cook for ’em? Guess 
I do ! And scratch to get things to cook, too ; else 
we’d have to live on salt air pudding with wind 
sass. I take in washing, and Lycurgus he goes 
fishing and clamming and choring around, and 


1 82 


MR. PRATT 


Editha helps me iron, and we all take watch and 
watch looking out for the young ones.” 

Hartley spoke then. “ We’re looking for a 
cook,” he says. “ Will you come and cook for us, 
and help about the house here? Mr. Pratt finds 
the job too big for one man.” 

She bobbed her head. “ Yup,” says she, dry 
as a chip. “ I should think he might, judging by 
what I’ve seen. No, I can’t come. I’ve got to 
stay home and look out for the folks.” 

“Why can’t your father do that?” asks 
Hartley. 

“ Who — pa? I guess you ain’t heard about pa. 
He’s sick. Got his never-get-over, he says. Pa’s 
had most every kind of symptom there is ; phthisic 
and influency and lumbago and pleurisy. Now 
he’s settled down to consumption and nervous 
dyspepsy. Afore ma died she used to try to cure 
him, but the doctor and pa had a row. The doctor 
said pa didn’t have consumption nor nothing else; 
what he needed was hard exercise, such as work. 
Pa said the doc didn’t know his business, and the 
doc said maybe not, but he knew pa. So pa told 
him never to darken our door again, and he ain’t — 
except to come around once in a while and collect 
something from me on the bill.” 


EUREKA 


.83 

“ Well,” says I, “ maybe you know somebody 
else that would do for us. Who’s a good cook and 
general housekeeper that would be likely to hire 
out? ” 

She thought for a moment or so. “ I don’t 
know,” she says. “ Most folks in this neighbor- 
hood is too high-toned to go out working. They’d 
rather stay to home and take boarders. Mrs. 
Hannah Jane Purvis is about the only one, and 
you’ve had her.” 

Martin made a face. “ We have,” he says. 

“ Yup,” says Eureka. “ She told Mr. Scudder 
that you was crazy as all get out, and sunk in 
worldly sin besides. She said you’d get your pay 
hereafter for treating her the way you did.” 

“ We hope to,” says Van, cheerful. “ Now, 
Miss — er — Sparrow, we want you to come and 
help us out. We’re Crusoes on a desert island 
and we need a Man — I should say Woman — Fri- 
day. We’ll pay you so much,” he says, naming a 
price that made even my eyes stick out, and I was 
used to high prices by this time. 

“A month?” she says, staring at him. 

“ A week,” says he. 

She had a queer way of doing everything by 
jerks, like as if she was hung on wires and worked 


8 4 


MR. PRATT 


with a string. Now she straightened up out of her 
chair so sudden you almost expected to hear her 
snap. 

“ A week? ” she sings out. “ Oh! ” Then she 
looked at me. 

“ Oh, it’s so, if he says so,” says I, resigned like. 

“ Land sakes! A week! I never — but it ain’t 
no use. What would become of pa and the chil- 
dren? ” 

“ Couldn’t you come over for the days, at 
least?” asks Martin. “You might go home 
nights, you know.” 

And that’s the way it ended, finally. The Twins 
had made up their minds, and when that happened, 
heaven and earth wouldn’t change ’em. At last 
Eureka said she’d talk it over with her folks, and 
Van Brunt said we would come over to her house 
next day and get the decision. 

“ There ! ” says he, when the Sparrow girl had 
gone. “ Skipper, the cook question is settled.” 

“ Maybe ’tis,” says I. “ Looks to me as if 
you’d settled it the way the feller settled the coffee, 
by upsetting it. For chaps that pined for rest and 
quiet you two do queer things. Do you realize 
what getting mixed up with that Sparrow gang is 
likely to mean? ” 

“If the whole flock is like the specimen bird 


EUREKA 


85 


we’ve seen,” he says, “ it’ll mean joy. If there was 
one thing needed to make Ozone Island a delight, 
a gem of purest ray serene, that original would be 
the thing. She’s a circus in herself. I shall dream 
to-night of pa and the doctor. Ho, ho! By the 
way, what’s her Christian name?” 

I told the name — the whole of it. How them 
Heavenlies did laugh. 

“ Eureka! ” says Hartley. “ Splendid! ” 

“Eureka!” says Van. “We have found it! 
Sol, let’s have lunch.” 

I got ’em something to eat and then the three 
of us put in the afternoon chasing the wild animals. 
The chickens was fairly easy to get hold of ; I laid 
a trail of corn up to the door of the hen-yard and 
trapped the most of ’em that way. But the pig 
was a holy terror. He’d had his experience with 
Ozone Islanders that morning and he didn’t want 
any more. Up and down that blessed sand bar 
we chased him, getting upset and tiring ourselves 
out. The pig race over to Eastwich wa’n’t in it. 
I did most of the chasing; the Heavenlies super- 
intended, as usual, and give orders and laughed. 
They pretty nigh laughed themselves sick. Finally 
the critter bolted into the woodshed and I locked 
the door on him. It was six o’clock when I 
dumped him into the sty. Of all the Natural Life 


1 86 


MR . PRATT 


days I’d had yet this one was the liveliest and most 
wearing. A week like it and my natural place 
would have been the burying ground. I cal’late I 
lost three pound that afternoon. I was getting so 
thin that when I fell down my legs made grooves 
in the sand. 

The next forenoon me and Hartley went over 
to close the cook trade. Van wouldn’t go. He 
said the gardening and the shipwreck and the 
steeple-chase — meaning the pig hunt — had given 
him sensations enough for a week or so; he had 
some of ’em with him yet. So Martin said he’d go, 
for my sake. I borrowed a couple of spare oars 
from Scudder, when he arrived with the morning’s 
dose of skim-milk and cream and butter, and, as 
I took care to row the skiff this time, we made the 
passage all right. Then we walked up to the 
Sparrows’ nest. 

’Twas a pretty shabby looking shack, now I tell 
you. Shingles dropping off, and fence falling 
down, and a general shortage of man’s work every- 
where. But there was a bed of bachelor’s buttons 
and old maid’s pinks under the front window, and 
the windows themselves was clean and bright. 
Eureka had done her best to make the place 
homey ; you could see that. 


EUREKA 


187 

She let us in when we knocked at the kitchen 
door. Her sleeves was rolled up and there was a 
big basket of clothes by the steaming washtub. 
Editha, the twelve-year-old, was grinding at the 
wringer and Dewey, the baby, was setting on 
the floor playing with a rag doll. The rest of the 
tribe — except Lycurgus, who had gone peddling 
clams — was off playing. 

Eureka, she apologized for things being so up- 
set, but there wa’n’t any need for apologies. The 
house was plain and poor — you could see that it 
took a mighty lot of stretching to make both ends 
come in sight of each other, let alone meet; but 
’twas clean as a whistle. Even the baby was clean, 
all except his face and hands, and no healthy young 
one ought to have them clean. 

“ Good morning,” says Hartley. “ Have you 
decided to cook for us? ” 

She bobbed her head over the washtub. “ I’ve 
decided it, if pa has,” says she. “ He ain’t made 
up his mind yet. He wanted to sleep on it, he said. 
I guess he’s done that. Anyhow he’s just got up. 
Step right into the dining-room and talk to him. 
You’ll have to excuse me; I’ve got to get this wash- 
ing done afore noon, somehow.” 


MR. PRATT 


1 88 

So she pitched into the scrubbing, bending in the 
middle exactly like a jointed pocket-rule, and the 
Twin and me went into the dining-room. 

Washington Sparrow was there. There wa’n’t 
but one comfortable rocking-chair in sight and he 
was in that, with his stocking feet resting on the 
ruins of a haircloth sofa. He was pretty husky 
looking, seemed to me, for a man complicated with 
consumption and nervous dyspepsy, but his face 
was as doleful as a crape bonnet, and ’twas plain 
that he couldn’t see no hope, and was satisfied with 
his eyesight. He had a clay pipe in his mouth and 
was smoking like a peat fire. 

“How are you, Mr. Sparrow?” says Martin, 
bright and chipper. “ How’s the health this 
morning? ” 

The invalid rolled his eyes around, but he didn’t 
get out of the rocker. Neither did he take them 
blue yarn socks off the sofa. 

“ Oh ! ” says he, groaning something awful. 
“ I’m miserable, thank you. Set down and make 
yourselves to home.” 

There was only three settable pieces of furniture 
in the room. He was using two of ’em, and t’other 
was a child’s high chair. So we decided to 
stand up. 


EUREKA 


189 

“ Don’t you find yourself improving this beau- 
tiful weather? ” asks Hartley, sympathetic. 

Washy fetched another groan, so deep that I 
judged it started way down in the blue socks. 

“ No,” says he. “ I’m past improving. Just 
lingering ’round now and suffering, waiting for the 
end. I s’pose Reky told you what I had, didn’t 
she?” 

Hartley looked troubled. “ Why,” he says, 
“she did say that you feared tuberculosis, but ” 

“ Tuber — nothing! That’s just like her! mak- 
ing fun of her poor sick father. What I’ve got is 
old-fashioned consumption.” Here he fetched a 
cough that was hollerer than the groaning. “Old- 
fashioned consumption and nervous dyspepsy. 
Can’t eat a meal’s vittles in comfort. But there! 
I’ll be through pretty soon. The sooner the 
quicker / say. Everybody ’ll be glad when I’m 
gone. ‘ Don’t,’ I says to ’em, ‘ don’t rag out in no 
mourning for me. Don’t put no hot-house wreaths 
on my grave. I know how you feel and — ’ Get 
off my feet, you everlasting young one! Think 
I’m a ladder? ” 

This last part was to Dewey, who had come in 
from the kitchen, and was trying to climb onto the 
sofa. 


MR. PRATT 


190 

Martin looked like he didn’t know what to say. 
By and by he cleared his throat and threw out a 
hint concerning Eureka’s coming to Ozone. The 
sick man shook his head. 

“ No,” he says. “ I’m self-sacrificing, and all 
that, but somehow I can’t make up my mind to let 
her go. I can’t bear to have her out of my sight a 
minute. You can’t begin to think, Mr. What’s- 
your-name, what a comfort ’tis to me, agonizing 
here and suffering, to have Reky setting down 
alongside of me day after day, the way she does. 
You can’t begin to think it, Mister.” 

I couldn’t begin to think it — not without what 
the doctor calls “ stimulants.” The amount of set- 
ting down that poor hard-working Eureka got 
time for wouldn’t comfort anybody much, it 
seemed to me. 

“ She’s my favorite child,” went on Washy, 
swabbing his eyes. “ She always was, too. Even 
when she was a baby I thought more of her than 
I done of all the others.” 

Eureka must have been listening, for she called 
from the kitchen. 

“ Why, pa! ” she says. “ When I was a baby 
there wa’n’t any others. I’m the oldest.” 

The invalid bounced up straight in the rocker. 


EUREKA 


191 

“That’s it!” he hollers. “Make fun of your 
helpless, poor old father ! Go ahead ! pick at me 
and contradict me! I s’pose when I’m dead and 
in my grave you’ll contradict me every time I 
speak.” 

He blew off steam for much as five minutes. 
Didn’t even remember to stop and get his cough 
going. Hartley turned to the door. I could see 
he was disappointed. 

“ Very well,” he says. “ I’m sorry. I’m sure 
she is just the girl we need. Good day, Mr. Spar- 
row.” 

I cal’late Washy wa’n’t expecting that. He 
hitched around in his chair. It had a busted cane 
seat, the chair did, and he had to roost on the edge 
of it to keep from falling through. 

“ Er — er — just a minute, Mister,” he says. “ I 
want you to understand how I feel about this thing. 
If I was able to do for myself ’twould be different, 
but ” 

Eureka came to the door then, wiping her arms 
on her apron. 

“ Why, pa,” she says, “ I told you I could fix 
that.” 

She went on to tell how she’d get up early every 
morning and cook the meals afore she left, and 


192 


MR . PRATT 


how Editha would be there, and Lycurgus would 
split the wood and do the chores, and how she’d 
be home nights, and so on. She had planned every- 
thing. I liked that girl. At last her dad give 
another one of his groans. 

“ All right,” says he. “ I give in. I ain’t going 
to stand in the way. Hadn’t ought to expect 
nothing different, I s’pose. Work and fret and 
slave yourself into the boneyard bringing up chil- 
dren, and — and educating ’em and all, and then 
off they go and leave you. Well, Fm resigned. 
Mr. — Mr. — What’s-your-name, she can go, Eu- 
reka can — for two dollars more a week.” 

I actually gasped out loud. The cheek of him I 
Why, the price Van had offered was enough to 
hire three girls. And now this shark wanted 
more. 

Even Martin Hartley seemed to be set back 
some. But he was game. For a “mercenary” chap 
he was the most liberal piece of goods on the shelf. 

“ Certainly, Mr. Sparrow,” says he. “ That 
will be satisfactory. Good morning. Good morn- 
ing, Eureka. I presume we shall see you to- 
morrow ? ” 

We got out of the house finally. Washy come 
far as the kitchen to see us off. He was smiling 


EUREKA 


193 


and sweet as syrup now. When I’d got to the walk 
Eureka called me back. 

“ Mr. Pratt,” she whispered, “ you tell Mr. 
Hartley that of course I sha’n’t take the extra two 
dollars. I’ll be paid too much as ’tis. But we 
won’t let pa know.” 

Afore I could answer there was a yell from the 
dining-room. I looked in and there was Washy 
doubled up in that rocker with his knees under his 
chin. He’d forgot about the busted cane seat and 
had set down heavy and gone through. Editha 
was trying to haul him out, the baby was crying, 
and the invalid himself was turning loose the 
healthiest collection of language I’d heard for a 
good while. Eureka dove to the rescue, and I 
come away. 

Hartley and I walked on a spell without saying 
much. Then he asks — 

4 4 Skipper, do you suppose that fellow really has 
consumption? ” 

“Humph!” says I, disgusted; “consumption 
of grub.” 

He thought a minute longer. 

“ Poor girl,” says he. “ She has a hard time 
of it. We must see if we can’t help her in some 
way.” 


CHAPTER XII 


MISS SPARROW'S DIAGNOSIS 

E UREKA was on hand bright and early the 
next day and it didn’t take me long to see 
that she was worth her salt. She took hold 
like a good one and had breakfast — and a mighty 
good breakfast — ready right on time. I don’t 
know when I’ve enjoyed a meal like I done that 
one, sure all the while that I hadn’t got to turn to 
and wash the dishes afterwards. I went out to my 
gardening feeling like a sick man who had turned 
the corner and was on the road to getting well 
again. 

And from then on the Natural Life was easy for 
all of us, for quite a spell. The new girl was a 
wonder, so far as doing work was concerned. 
She’d go through Marcellus’s old home like a hur- 
ricane, sweeping and dusting and singing. She was 
’most always singing — that is, when she wa’n’t 
talking. She had a queer programme of music, 
too, running from hymn tunes to songs she’d heard 
the boarders use over at the hotel. One minute 


194 


MISS SPARROW’S DIAGNOSIS 


195 


’twould be, “ Land ahead! Its fruits are waving,” 
and the next meeting somebody “ in the shade of 
the old apple tree.” 

One day I come in and she was piping up about 
how everybody to her house worked but her dad, 
or words to that effect. 

“ Hello ! ” says I. “ Did you make that up out 
of your head? ” 

“ No,” she says. “ It’s a new one that Lycurgus 
heard over to the Old Home House. It sounded 
so as if ’twas made for oujr family that it kind of 
stuck in Lys’s craw and he come home and told it 
to me. 

“ ‘Everybody works but father. 

And he sets * round all day.’ 

“ I tried it on pa last night,” she went on. 
“ Thought it might jar him some, but it didn’t. 
He said ’twas funny. Maybe I’d think so, too, if 
I was him.” 

How Hartley laughed when he heard her sing- 
ing that. She tickled the Twins ’most to death, 
anyway. She was as sharp as a whip and as honest 
as a Quaker parson. When her first pay day come 
she set her squared-toed boot down and simply 
would not take the extry two dollars wages. She 
said even a hog knew when it had enough, and she 


9 6 


MR. PRATT 


wa’n’t a hog. Martin told me he was going to 
make it up to her some other way. The Heav- 
enlies was mighty interested in her; but not more 
so than she was in them. 

She and I had some great confabs when we was 
alone together. She asked I don’t know how many 
questions about Hartley and Van Brunt; why they 
was living this way, and how they used to live and 
all. I told her some of what Lord James had told 
me, but not the whole. I left out about the en- 
gaged business, because I figgered it wa’n’t any of 
her affairs, rightly speaking. Course ’twa’n’t none 
of mine neither, but somehow I’d got to feel that 
I was a sort of father to them two cracked New 
Yorkers. 

“ Do you think they’re crazy? ” she asks. 
“ Nate Scudder says they act as if they was.” 

“ You’ve got me,” says I. “ I ain’t made up my 
mind yet.” 

“ What makes ’em go in swimming every morn- 
ing? ” she wanted to know. 

“ Why, to take a bath, I guess,” says I. “Van 
Brunt told me he always took his ‘ plunge ’ when he 
was home.” 

She nodded, quick as usual. “ Um-hum,” says 
she. “ I’ve read about it. They do it in the mar- 


MISS SPARROW’S DIAGNOSIS 


197 


ble swimming pool in the gardens of the ducal 
mansion. And there’s palm trees around and 
fountains, and nightingales singing, and music 
floating on the balmy perfumed air. And when 
they’ve got all scrubbed up there’s velvet-footed 
menials to fan ’em and give ’em hasheesh to 
smoke.” 

“ Want to know ! ” I says. “ What’s hasheesh? 
Plug cut or cigars? ” 

“ ’Tain’t neither,” said she. “ It’s some kind of 
stuff that makes you dream about beautiful women 
and things.” 

“ Well, they don’t have that here,” says I. 
“ They smoke cigars and cigarettes. And I’ve 
smoked both of ’em and my dreams was mainly 
about how much work I had to do. Nightingales 
are birds, ain’t they? We’re pretty shy on night- 
ingales over here to Horsefoot, but maybe the 
gulls make that up. Gulls don’t sing, no more than 
hens, but they screech enough for six. Where did 
you get all this stuff from, anyway? ” 

She got it out of library books and the Home 
Comforter . Seems old Miss Paine, over in the 
village, lent her the Comforter every week as fast 
as she got through with it herself. Eureka had 
never been to the city, nor anywheres further than 


MR. PRATT 


Eastwich, and her ideas about such things was the 
queerest mixed-up mess of novel trash and smart 
boarder’s lies that ever was. That, and what she’d 
read in the newspapers. She said she was going to 
the city some day, when her “ affinity ” showed up. 

“What’s your idea of a first-class affinity?” I 
asks, looking for information. I didn’t know 
whether ’twas an animal or a cart. 

“ Well,” says she, “ he’s got to be good-looking 
and have chests and chests of gold and jewelry. 
Further than that I ain’t made up my mind yet.” 

She said when she did go she would sew up her 
money in the waist of her dress, and if a confi- 
dence man, or a trust or a policeman tried to get 
it away from her, she bet he’d have trouble on 
his hands. 

“Policeman?” says I. “What would he be 
doing trying to steal your money? Policemen 
ain’t thieves.” 

“They ain’t, hey?” she says. “City police- 
men ain’t? I guess you ain’t read much about 
’em.” 

She read the police committee trials in a stack of 
three or four-year-old newspapers and they’d fixed 
her, far’s policemen was concerned. 

She didn’t take any stock in Hartley’s being 


MISS SPARROW’S DIAGNOSIS 


199 


down our way for his health. She said she had 
made up her mind what was the matter with him. 
“ What ails him,” says she, “ is Girl.” 

" Girl? ” says I. 

“ Yup. He’s in love.” 

I set back and looked at her. Mind you I 
hadn’t said one word about Agnes Page or the 
busted engagement. 

“ Get out ! ” I says, finally. “ What did he 
come here for then? There ain’t a female native 
in this neighborhood that wouldn’t stop a clock — 
present company excepted, of course.” 

“ It don’t make no difference. He’s in love, 
and he’s come here to forget his troubles. You 
never read 1 False but Fair, or the Bride Bereft,’ 
did you? I thought not. Why, East Wellmouth 
is Glory alongside of some places that young men 
in love goes to. You wait. I’ll find out that girl’s 
name some of these days.” 

She said that Van Brunt wa’n’t in love; which 
struck me funny, knowing what I did. 

’Twa’n’t so very long after this that the Heav- 
enlies and me drove to South Eastwich to visit 
the Fresh Air School. I don’t think Hartley 
would have gone if it hadn’t been that his name 
was ’specially mentioned in the note from Agnes. 


200 


MR. PRATT 


Even then Van had to say that he wouldn’t go 
unless his chum did. 

We left Eureka to keep house. It seemed to 
suit her first rate. 

“ You wait till that Scudder man comes,” she 
says to me. “ I want to talk to him about the milk 
he’s been leaving.” 

“ What’s the matter with it? ” I asks. “ Ain’t 
he giving full measure? ” 

“ Not of milk he ain’t,” she says. “ It’s too 
white to wash with and too blue to drink. I’m 
going to tell him we’ve got a pump ourselves.” 

The Eastwich school was a big old farm house 
with considerable land around it. The youngsters 
had lots of room to run and carry on. All hands 
was at the door to meet us, Agnes and Miss Tal- 
ford and Redny, and all the inmates. The Heav- 
enlies had stopped in the village and got a big 
freezer full of ice cream — they ordered it ahead — 
and, well, I thought we’d got a warm welcome, but 
when the children saw that freezer 

The ladies shook hands with us and asked us in. 
Lord James was there in all his glory. You could 
see that his new job suited him down to his shoes. 
No hard work, no sailing or such like, good easy 
bosses, and plenty of picking on the side, I judged. 


MISS SPARROW'S DIAGNOSIS 


201 


I turned the horse and carriage over to him, under 
protest, and we went into the house. 

“ First of all, Ed,” said the Page girl, turning 
to Van Brunt, “ I want to thank you, on behalf of 
the children, for your kindness in sending them 
the fruit. It is delicious. You should see the dears 
every day when the expressman comes with the 
basket.” . 

Van looked puzzled. “ Fruit? ” he says. “ I 
don’t understand. Do you know anything about 
fruit, skipper? ” 

I pleaded not guilty. Hartley didn’t seem to 
hear. He was busy talking with Miss Talford. 

“ Why ! ” says Agnes. “ Doesn’t it come from 
you? We have been receiving the loveliest basket 
of fruit from Boston every morning. I thought 
of course you had ordered it for us. Didn’t you, 
really ? ” 

Van shook his head. “ It takes a man with the 
ordinary amount of brains and thoughtfulness to 
do things like that,” he says. “ I’m miles below 
the average in such things. In all but carelessness 
and general idiocy I’m a bear on the market. 
Here, Martin ! Miss Talford, please excuse him 
for a moment, will you? Martin, are you respon- 
sible for this fruit? ” 


202 


MR. PRATT 


Hartley was so sunburned that you couldn t 
have told if he did blush. But he acted nervous 
and uneasy. 

“ It was nothing,” he said. “ I knew the 
youngsters liked such things, and the stuff you get 
here isn’t eatable. Then James is a success, Miss 
Talford, you say? ” 

But he didn’t get off quite as easy as that. 
Agnes looked up surprised and, I thought, pleased. 

“ Thank you, Mr. Hartley,” she said. “ It was 
kind of you, and very thoughtful.” 

Of course the Talford girl thanked him, too. 
He acted a good deal fike he wished he hadn’t 
come. 

But I guess that feeling wore off after a while. 

. It seemed to me that Miss Page was considerable 
pleasanter to him than I’d seen her yet. She 
talked to him more and there wa’n’t so much of 
that chilly “ hands-off ” kind of manner in her 
voice. Two or three times they seemed almost 
friendly, as you might say, and toward the end of 
the day Hartley’s blueness, that was always with 
him when she was in sight, had pretty nigh dis- 
appeared. He seemed quite happy, for him — 
not his usual careless, don’t-care kind of jollity, 
either. 


MISS SPARROW'S DIAGNOSIS 


203 


One thing that I think Agnes noticed was the 
way the boy, Redny, stuck to him. You could see 
that the little chap’s idea of a first-class brick was 
Martin Hartley. And another sure thing was that 
Redny was the Page girl’s favorite. She was 
always running after him to see what he was 
doing, that he didn’t get hurt, or such like. One 
time when she’d gone on this kind of an errand, 
and the Twins and Miss Talford and me was left 
together, I spoke up and says — 

“ That small fire top is considerable on Miss 
Agnes’s mind, ain’t he? ” 

Margaret Talford laughed. “ He’s the apple 
of her eye,” says she. “ She fairly worships him. 
I’m sure I don’t know why, for he’s the worst 
mischief-maker in the school. But Agnes’s sym- 
pathy seems to run to the black sheep. Were you 
a black sheep, Mr. Van Brunt? ” 

Van shook his head, very solemn. “ I was,” 
says he, “ but the cleansing influence of the Natural 
Life has removed the upper coating. You can see 
that she doesn’t find it necessary to run after me. 
I flatter myself that I’m rapidly becoming — what 
is it that our new cook sings, skipper? Oh, yes! 

‘ Whiter than snow.’ Do you notice my alabaster 
purity, Miss Talford? ” 


204 


MR. PRATT 


“ I hadn’t as yet,” she says. “ I’ll call Agnes’s 
attention to it.” 

“ Pray don’t,” says he. “ I’m not altogether 
certain of its lasting qualities. Suppose you keep 
an eye on me instead, until I’m sure that it is 
enamel and not whitewash.” 

That was a sample of the talk of them two. 
Just nonsense, but they seemed to enjoy it first 
rate. 

At dinner Van entertained the crowd, as usual,, 
with stories about the Island and our doings on it. 
He told how the Ark upset, and ’twas wild enough 
anyhow, but when he’d finished embroidering it 
’twas a regular crazy quilt. Then he begun with 
Eureka. He didn’t know much about Washy, ex- 
cept from the girl’s talk, for Hartley nor me hadn’t 
told much of our experience. So all he said was 
that the old man was sick. Agnes Page seemed a 
good deal interested. 

After they’d finished eating she asked me con- 
siderable many questions. 

“ Is he all alone there, the poor sick man? ” she 
asked. 

“ No, no! ” says I. “ There’s children enough 
to help out a whole hospital. He’s all right.” 

“ But those children ought not to have to stay at 


MISS SPARROW’S DIAGNOSIS 205 

home,” says she. “ They need the air and exercise 
and schooling.” 

“ They don’t look as if they was wasting away,” 
I told her. “ Eureka’s as good as a ma to ’em — 
and better than a pa — her pa, anyway.” 

She seemed to be thinking. “ The poor fellow,” 
she says, referring to Washy, I judged. “ I must 
drive over and see him.” 

I told her Hartley had promised to help Eureka. 
She seemed real pleased. Her face kind of lit up. 
She walked away then and didn’t say no more. 

Lord James and me had our dinner together. I 
pumped him about the girls and how he liked 
’em. 

“ They’re all right,” he says. “ As perfect 
ladies and as generous and open ’anded as I could 
wish.” 

“ Which do you like best? ” I asked. 

“ I ’aven’t no choice,” he says. “ Miss Page 
i$ a good ’ousekeeper. Almost too good if I may 
say it. A lady ’adn’t ought to meddle with ’ouse- 
hold affairs, not when she has a competent man to 
attend to ’em for ’er. Miss Talford now, she’s 
different. I’d like to work for ’er always.” 

“ Pity she ain’t going to be Mrs. Van Brunt 
instead of t’other,” says I. Then you’d have an 


206 


MR. PRATT 


easy berth. Don’t it seem to you that Miss Page 
and your boss ain’t any too thick for engaged 
folks? ” 

“ No, indeed! ” says he, scornful. “ Lord love 
you, you’d ought to see some married folks as I’ve 
worked for. W’y Lord ’Enry and ’er Ladyship, 
they ” 

He was on his English tack now and you never 
could get him off it when he was started good. I 
didn’t get much satisfaction out of him. 

I got more a while later, though. Just afore 
we started for home Hartley and the Page girl 
come walking down the porch together. They 
wa’n’t saying much when I first saw ’em, but all at 
once she says — 

“ Mr. Hartley, there is one thing I must ask 
you. You paid Dennis the five dollar prize he won 
at the race that day. Did you collect it from the 
judges? ” 

“ Oh, that’s all right,” he answers, fidgety. “ I 
think probably I did. I don’t remember.” 

“ I thought not,” says she. “ Now you must 
permit me to pay it to you. The boy is under my 
charge and I shall insist upon it.” 

He was pretty short and sharp, I thought. “No, 
really,” he said, “ I’ve forgotten the affair entirely. 


MISS SPARROW’S DIAGNOSIS 


207 


No doubt I’ve been paid already. It was nothing, 
of course, and the boy was plucky and I took a 
fancy to him.” 

She insisted, but he wouldn’t give in. At last 
she says, looking hard at him — 

“ I think,” she says, “ that your simple life is 
doing a great deal for you. You have improved in 
many ways. I have heard things — good things — 
about you that surprised me. I’m very glad.” 

He didn’t answer. Just then the valet brought 
the carriage up to the door and ’twas time to say 
good by. 

I was pretty tickled with the day’s work, take it 
altogether. Eureka got after me soon as we was 
back to the Island, and she asked a couple of ton 
of questions. She wanted to know all about the 
school and especially about the Page girl and her 
chum. 

“ You ain’t told me all you know,” says she, 
finally. “ Tell the rest of it. What relation is this 
Agnes Page to Mr. Hartley? ” 

I said she wa’n’t no relation. At last, sort of in 
self-defence, I told the whole yarn about the en- 
gagement — Van’s engagement, I mean. 

She bobbed her head. “ I thought so,” says 
she. “ I don’t care if Mr. Van Brunt is engaged 


208 MR . PRATT, 

to the Page one. He ain’t in love with her. And 
Mr. Hartley is.” 

“ What are you talking about? ” says I, soon’s 
I could get my breath. 

“ Just what I said. He’s in love with Miss 
Page. And I’m going to help him get her.” 

“ Humph!” says I. “ You be, hey? Well, 
how about poor Van ? What do you want to shove 
him out into the cold for? He ain’t done anything 
to you, has he ? ” 

She shook her sunbonnet and looked wise. 
“ That’s all right,” she says. “ I’ve got my ideas 
about him, too. Anyway I’m going to help Mr. 
Hartley.” 

I thought and thought. And then, without ex- 
actly meaning to, I spoke my thought out loud. 

“ I believe I’ll help you help him,” says I. 

She wa’n’t a bit surprised. “Humph!” she 
says. u That’s no news. You’ve been trying to 
help him for ever so long.” 

What do you think of that ? There wa’n’t any- 
thing slow or dull about that Sparrow girl — not 
enough to fret yourself over, there wa’n’t. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE LAWN FETE 

I T was August now. The nice weather held out 
right along and one day on Ozone Island was 
a good deal like the next. 

And yet it seemed to me that there was little 
changes. For instance, take the matter of reading. 
When we first arrived ’twas nothing but that 
Natural Life book; the Heavenly Twins was at it 
continuous, and such a thing as a newspaper or 
magazine was what Van Brunt called an “ abomi- 
nation.” I couldn’t get a paper even to kindle fire 
with; had to use poverty grass for that. But now 
the Natural Life sermon laid on the dining-room 
mantel piece most of the time, with a layer of dust 
on it, and Scudder fetched the Boston and New 
York newspapers every day. And magazines and 
books begun to come in the mail. 

I remember one day Hartley set reading the 
New York Evening Post , that part of it he called 
the “ financial page.” All at once he spoke. 


209 


210 


MR. PRATT 


“ By Jove! Van,” he says. “ Consolidated Tea 
Lead is up three points from last week’s quota- 
tions. There must be something doing.” 

Van looked at him, kind of sad and disap- 
pointed. 

“ Martin,” says he, “ are you falling from 
grace? Get thee behind me, Satan. Give me that 
financial sheet.” 

Hartley laughed and tossed it over. 

“ There ! ” says his chum, crumpling it up and 
shoving it into his pocket. “ That disturbing influ- 
ence is out of the way. Let us discuss the simple 
and satisfying subject of agriculture. There is an 
article on ‘ The Home Garden ’ in this month’s 
number of The Rural Gentleman , which should be 
instructive to our friend Mr. Pratt, plower of sea 
and soil. Skipper, lend me your ears. I’ll return 
them shortly.” 

Then he commenced to read that magazine piece 
out loud to me, very solemn, and stopping every 
once in a while to chuck in some ridiculous advice 
on his own account. This had got to be a regular 
thing. Every bit of farm news I had to hear. The 
garden was Van’s pet joke. 

“ What,” says he, when the reading was done, 
“ is the latest crop bulletin, Sol? ” 


THE LAWN FETE 


21 


“ I have the honor to report,” says I, “ that 
from the present outlook we’ll have two cornstalks, 
one tomatter vine, and three cucumber plants 
really in sight by to-morrow morning. That is, if 
the sand don’t blow in and cover ’em up in the 
night.” 

“ Good! ” he says. “ I move that the report 
be accepted. Martin, don’t let me see you wasting 
your time on the frivolity of the Street, when there 
are such serious matters to claim our attention.” 

Which was all right, only that very afternoon I 
saw him, himself, out behind the barn, reading 
that Post financial page and looking mighty inter- 
ested. 

They was more anxious to be doing things than 
when they first come. Hartley’s health was im- 
proving all the time, and that probably accounted 
for his liveliness. I took ’em sailing ’most every 
day and they wanted to fish and shoot and the like 
of that. 

Once we went on a cruise after shore birds. I 
bagged a few, but the Twins couldn’t hit a flock of 
balloons with a cannon, so they didn’t have no luck. 
But a little later Van went out alone with Nate 
Scudder and I’ll be blessed if he didn’t come back 
with a dozen peep and ring-necks. Then the way 


MR. PRATT 


1\2 

he crowed over me and Martin was scandalous, 
till, a week later, Hartley himself went gunning 
with Nate and fetched home fifteen, bigger and 
better than his chum’s. And after this, of course, 
’twas nothing but what a great hunter Scudder 
was, and rubbing it into me. 

The hotel boarders and the town folks was 
mighty interested in the Ozone Islanders by this 
time. The picnic boats from the Old Home 
House generally sailed close by our point, to give 
the passengers a chance to look our outfit over. 
Sometimes the boats stopped, and then the Twins 
would take an observation from an upstairs win- 
dow, and, if they liked the looks of the crowd, 
would come down and keep what they called 
“ open house.” “ Open house ” always meant 
more work for Eureka and me. Lucky for us, 
’twas pretty seldom that the Heavenlies liked their 
callers’ looks well enough to open up. 

The Baptist minister and his wife came over to 
call. There was going to be a “ lawn fete and 
sale ” at the church pretty soon, and the idea was 
to get the Twins to “ donate ” something. Van 
Brunt was full of his high jinks that day, and he 
took that poor parson and his wife in tow. 

First he carted ’em out to the henyard. He 


THE LAWN FETE 


213 


paraded up and down in front of the coops, point- 
ing out the scraggly Plymouth Rocks as if they was 
some kind of freaks, like ostriches. He said they 
ate a bag of corn a day and laid one egg a week, so 
he figgered that every egg was worth five dollars 
or so. What did the parson think of a donation of 
half a dozen of them eggs ? 

“ Not to eat, you understand,” says Van; “ but 
as rarities, as curiosities.” 

The minister was a young feller, not long out of 
college, and pretty straight-laced. But he had 
some fun in him. 

“ If I might suggest,” he says, “ I think one of 
the hens themselves would be more acceptable and 
profitable. Among our summer people there is a 
great demand for * antiques.’ Now one of those 
hens ” 

That tickled Van. He told Hartley afterwards 
that the minister was a trump. He donated lib- 
eral — not with eggs nor poultry neither — and 
promised that he and Hartley would attend the 
sale. 

And they did. And so did Eureka and me. 
The lawn fete was held in the meeting-house front 
yard, and ’twas all rigged up fine with flags and 
tissue paper and bunting. There was a grab bag 


214 


MR. PRATT 


and a cake table and a fancy goods table, and I 
don’t know what all. All the summer folks was 
there, and most of the town women and girls, and 
the prices charged for things would have been 
highway robbery if it hadn’t been a church that 
was charging ’em. 

The Heavenlies bought and bought and bought. 
They bought everything — the foolishest things. 
Van bought three pair of embroidered suspenders 
and a crocheted tidy and a pin cushion, and Mar- 
tin got a worsted Afghan and a hand-painted sofa 
pillow, so fresh that the paint come off on your 
hands when you touched it. And ’twa’n’t any quiet 
colored paint neither. And when you rubbed off 
one layer there was another underneath. Luretta 
Daniels’ daughter had painted it; she was taking 
lessons and her ma said that she’d painted that 
pillow over much as a dozen times, because the 
colors wa’n’t “ blending right ” or the subject 
didn’t suit her. ’Twas so stiff with paint on top 
that ’twould have been like ramming your head 
into a fence to lay on it. 

We stayed till most everything was sold but a 
log cabin bed quilt that the Christian paupers at 
the poorhouse had made. Nobody seemed to want 
that, although they was gay rags enough in it to 


THE LAWN FETE 


215 

build a rainbow. The minister’s wife said she was 
so sorry. The poor things at the almshouse had 
worked so hard. 

“ You wait a minute,” says Van. “Til get rid 
of it.” 

He took out his vest pocket memorandum book 
and tore about ten pages into little squares. Then 
he made numbers on these squares with a pencil. 
Half of these he put into his hat, and, the next 
I knew, he was standing on a chair, waving the 
bedquilt with one hand and the hat with t’other. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen,” he shouts. “ Here is 
positively the last chance to secure this magnificent 
— er — er — lambrykin, made by the deserving poor 
to cover the restless rich. Competition has been so 
strong that no one person has been able to buy it. 
The only solution would be a syndicate, and the 
almshouse is opposed to trusts. Therefore I am 
authorized to ’’—then he bent down and whis- 
pered, “ Mr. Morton, kindly give me whatever 
small change you have left.” 

The minister looked puzzled, but he handed up 
a half dollar. Van Brunt reaches into the hat and 
takes out one of the folded slips of paper. 

“ Here you are, sir,” says he. “ Treasure that 
as you would your life. Now, then, ladies and 


2l6 


MR. PRATT 


gentlemen, this is a raffle. The minister starts it. 
Tickets are anything you please, provided it’s 
enough. Come early and avoid the rush.” 

There was a kind of gasp from all the church 
people. The members of the sewing circle looked 
at each other with the most horrified kind of faces. 
The parson, Mr. Morton, run forward. 

“ Just a minute, Mr. Van Brunt, if you please ” 
he sings out. 

But Van waved him away. The summer folks 
come after them tickets like a whirlwind, laughing 
and shouting and passing up dollar bills. ’Twa’n’t 
hardly any time afore the hat was empty and the 
Twin’s jacket pocket was full of money. Then he 
fills up the hat with more pieces of paper. 

“ These are duplicates of the numbers sold,” 
says he. “ The drawing will now take place. 
Here, Bill!” 

He grabs a little shaver by the coat collar and 
lifts him up to the chair. Old lady Patterson, the 
deacon’s wife, set up a scream. 

“ Stop ! ” she yells. “ My child shall not ” 

“ It takes but a moment, madam,” says Van, 
waving to her, calm and easy. “ Now, Julius 
Caesar, please take one of those numbers from the 
hat.” 


THE LAWN FETE 


217 


The boy reddened up and grinned and looked 
foolish, but he stuck a freckled paw in and took out 
a piece of paper. 

“Number fourteen,” shouts Van Brunt. “Num- 
ber fourteen secures the — the tapestry. Who’s the 
lucky one? ” 

Everybody unfolded their papers, but there 
didn’t seem to be any fourteen. Hartley had three, 
but he wa’n’t in it. 

“ Number fourteen,” Van calls. “ Who is 
fourteen? Mr. Morton, you began this. Where 
is your ticket? ” 

The minister looked dreadfully troubled. 
“ Really,” he stammered, “ I — I — it was a mis- 
take. I ” 

“ Here’s yours, Mr. Morton,” says a little girl. 
“ You dropped it on the ground.” 

The parson looked pretty sick. He reached for 
it, but Van got it first. 

“ Number fourteen it is,” he says. “ Our es- 
teemed friend, the Reverend Mr. Morton, secures 
the prize. That’s as it should be. Three cheers 
for Mr. Morton! ” 

The summer folks give the cheers, but the 
church folks looked pretty average wild, I thought. 

I forget how much was in Van Brunt’s pocket. 


2l8 


MR. PRATT 


That bedquilt fetched in enough money to pretty 
nigh buy the poorhouse itself. 

The Twins felt good. They figgered that 
they’d made a hit at that “ lawn fete.” 

“ Great success, my raffle idea, wasn’t it, skip- 
per,” says Van Brunt, on the way home. 

I didn’t answer right off. Eureka spoke up. 

“ Well,” she says, “ it sold the bedquilt, but I 
wouldn’t wonder if it made the new minister lose 
his job. You see, ’twas gambling, and that church 
is dreadful down on gambling. Mrs. Patterson 
told me that she should have her husband call a 
parish meeting right off. I guess you won’t be 
invited to no more sales this year.” 

And we wa’n’t. Poor Morton had an awful time 
explaining, and the only way he could get out of it 
was to lay it heavy on the Twins. He had to 
preach a sermon giving gambling fits, and all 
around town ’twas nothing but how dissipated and 
wicked the Heavenlies was. We wa’n’t fit for 
decent folks to associate with. 

But I ain’t been able to learn, even yet, that the 
bedquilt money was returned to the ticket buyers. 

Van got a long letter from Agnes Page a little 
later, saying that she had heard of him as a “ dis- 
turbing influence ” and that she was shocked and 


THE LAWN FETE 


219 


grieved. He thought ’twas a great joke and didn’t 
seem to care much. Nate Scudder was glad of the 
whole business. He didn’t want nobody else to be 
milking his own pet cows. 

Me and Eureka was glad, too, in a way. We 
judged that Van’s being in disgrace with his girl 
would help Hartley’s side along. And in a few 
days another idea begun to develop that, when I 
found it out, seemed to me likely to help him more. 

Eureka told me that she’d seen a dress pattern 
at the church sale that she wanted awful. I asked 
her why she didn’t buy it and she said ’twas two 
dollars and a half and she couldn’t afford it. Hart- 
ley heard her say it and he loafed out into the 
kitchen and begun to ask questions, pumping 
her, sort of quiet, to find out what she done 
with her money. After she’d gone home he says 
to me — 

“ Skipper, that girl is robbing herself to support 
that old loafer, her father.” 

“ That’s right,” says I. “ It’s my opinion that 
she ain’t never told him that she ain’t getting that 
extry two dollars a week. I guess she pays every 
cent into the house.” 

“ It’s a shame ! ” says he. “ Can’t we make the 
old vagabond earn his own living? ” 


220 


MR. PRATT 


“ When you do,” I says, “ I’ll believe that 
black’s the blonde shade of white. Making 
Washy Sparrow work would be as big a miracle 
as the loaves and fishes.” 

He thought a spell. “ Well, I mean to look into 
the matter,” he says. “ Sol, I want you to find out 
who owns that apology for a house they live in. 
Don’t ask Eureka. We must keep it a secret from 
her or she’ll interfere. And we may as well not 
tell Van, either. He’s so careless that he might 
give it away.” 

“ All right,” says I. “ I’ll ask Scudder. He 
knows ’most all of everybody’s business and Huldy 
Ann knows the rest.” 

So when Nate come, after breakfast next morn- 
ing, I asked him. 

“ What do you want to know for?” says he, 
suspicious as usual. 

“ Oh, nothing. Just curious, that’s all.” 

“They ain’t going to move out, are they?” 
He seemed mighty interested. 

“ No, no! ” says I. “ Where’d they move to? 
Think they’re going to Washington to visit the 
President or the Diplomatic Corpse? ” 

“ Well,” he says, “ you needn’t get mad. I 
didn’t know but they might be coming over here. 


THE LAWN FETE 


221 


I don’t mind telling you. Huldy Ann, my wife, 
owns the place, if you want to know.” 

I was surprised. He was a regular sand-flea for 
bobbing up where you didn’t expect him. 

“ She does? ” says I. “ Say, Nate, for the land 
sakes how much more of this country belongs to 
you and Huldy? And how much did you pay 
for it?” 

He went on with a long rigmarole about a mort- 
gage and a second mortgage and “foreclosing to 
protect himself,” and so on. All I see in it was 
more proof that lambs fooling with Nate Scudder 
was likely to lose, not only wool, but hoofs, hide 
and tallow. 

When I told Hartley he seemed real pleased. 

“ That makes it easy,” he says. “Scudder will 
accommodate me by doing a little favor, won’t 
he?” 

“Sure thing!” says I, sarcastic. “Ain’t he 
been accommodating you ever since you struck 
town?” 

“ Yes,” he says, “ he has. Scudder is a generous 
chap.” 

And he meant it, too ! Why the good Lord lets 
such simple innocents as him and his chum run 
around loose for is — but there ! No doubt He has 


222 


MR. PRATT 


his reasons. And what would become of the sum- 
mer hotels without that kind? 

Him and Nate was pretty thick for the next few 
days. Something was up, though as yet I wa’n’t in 
the secret. Hartley made one or two trips to the 
village and he took neither me nor Van with him. 
He asked me where the doctor lived and a lot more 
questions. 

Van Brunt, too, was getting pretty confidential 
with Nate. I caught the two of ’em off alone by 
the barn or somewheres quite a good many times. 
They was always whispering earnest, and when I 
hove in sight they’d break away and act guilty. 
There was something up there, too, and again 
I wa’n’t in with the elect. I begun to feel 
slighted. 

But in a little while Hartley’s secret come out. 
One day Van took a notion to go down to Half 
Moon Neck gunning after peeps. He wanted 
Hartley to go with him, but Martin said no. He 
said he didn’t feel like it, somehow. Why didn’t 
Van put it off? But Van wa’n’t the put-off kind. 
He was going and going right then. He wanted 
Scudder to sail him down, but Nate was too busy, 
so he hired Eureka’s brother, Lycurgus. The two 
sailed away in the Dora Bassett to be gone all 


THE LAWN FETE 


223 


night. I wa’n’t invited. The Twins had no use 
for me as a gunning pilot. 

That afternoon late Hartley comes over from 
the main, rowed by Scudder. The pair of ’em 
seemed mighty tickled about something. 

“Well, Mr. Hartley,” says Nate, “we’ll see you 
to-morrow morning. It’ll work all right; you see.” 

“Will he work?” laughs Hartley. “That’s 
the question.” 

“ I cal’late he’ll make the bluff,” snickers Scud- 
der. “ I don’t know where he’ll sleep nights if he 
don’t. Land of love ! Did you see his face when 
you sprung it on him ? Haw ! haw ! ” 

When we got to the house Hartley calls in 
Eureka. 

“ You’re going to stay here to-night,” he says to 
her. “ Mr. Pratt and I have an errand ashore 
early in the morning and Mr. Van Brunt will be 
back soon after, and hungry, I imagine. So you 
must be ready with his breakfast. It’s all right. 
Your father understands.” 

Eureka was some surprised, but she said she’d 
stay. 

All through supper Hartley was laughing to 
himself. Just afore bedtime he calls me out on the 
porch. 


224 


MR. PRATT 


“ Sol,” he says, “ what would surprise you most 
in this world? ” 

“ To see Mr. Van Brunt shoot at a bird and hit 
it,” says I. Leaving me out of all these gunning 
trips jarred my pride considerable. 

“ Humph! ” he says. “ He shot a dozen the 
other day.” 

“ Yes, but I didn’t see him shoot ’em.” 

He laughed. “ You countrymen are jealous 
creatures,” he says. “ Well, this is more surpris- 
ing than that. What would you say if Mr. Wash- 
ington Sparrow consented to go to work? ” 

I looked at him. “ I wouldn’t say nothing,” I 
says. “ I’d send for a straight-jacket. What are 
you talking about? ” 

He turned around in his chair. 

“You remember I told you I was going to try 
to make him? ” he says. “ Well, I think I’ve suc- 
ceeded. Come with me to-morrow morning and 
see. I’m doing it for the sake of that plucky 
daughter of his, and it has required some engi- 
neering and diplomacy. But I think I win. Don’t 
mention a word to Eureka, though.” 

I promised to keep mum. I tried to get him to 
tell me more, but he wouldn’t. “ Wait and see ” 
was all I could get out of him. 


THE LAWN FETE 


225 


I turned in a kind of trance, as you might say. 
Washy Sparrow work! Well, I’d have to see him 
doing it with my own eyes. I wouldn’t believe 
even a tintype of the performance if ’twas took by 
Saint Peter. 


CHAPTER XIV 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS” 

W E left the Island early next day. I 
rowed to the main and anchored the 
skiff. Then me and Hartley walked 
up to the Neck road. I didn’t ask no questions. 
He could speak first or be still. I’d had my dose. 
Nobody can call me nosey. 

He did speak first. “ Well, skipper? ” he says, 
finally. 

“ Well, Mr. Hartley,” says I. 

“Why don’t you ask me what my scheme is? 
Aren’t you curious? ” 

“ Scheme? ” says I. “ Scheme? I ain’t much 
of a schemer, myself. Nice weather we’re having, 
ain’t it.” 

He laughed. “ Sol,” says he. “ I like you. 
You’re the right sort — you and Scudder.” 

Drat him ! Why did he want to spoil it all by 
that last? 


226 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS }> 


227 


“ Virtue must be its own reward, then, far’s 
I’m concerned,” I says, pretty average dry. “ I 
don’t seem to be getting no other kind. Pity me 
and Nate couldn’t divide the substantiate more 
equal.” 

His face clouded right up. u Money!” he 
says, disgusted, kicking a stick out of his way. 
“ Don’t you for one minute believe that money 
means happiness.” 

“ All right,” I says. “ I ain’t contradicting you. 
You’ve had more experience with it than I have. 
Sometimes it seems as if I could manage to bear 
up under a couple of thousand or so without shed- 
ding more’n a bucket of tears; but I’m open to 
conviction — like the feller that said he stole the 
horse, but they’d got to show proof enough to 
satisfy him.” 

’Twas some minutes afore he come out of his 
blue fit. Then he says — - 

“ The scheme is this: I determined to see what 
could be done to make things easier for the Spar- 
row girl. The only solution seemed to be the get- 
ting rid of papa.” 

“ If you’d waited long enough,” I says; “ maybe 
his consumptive dyspepsy would have saved you 
the trouble.” 


228 


MR. PRATT 


“ I wish I had your faith,” says he. 

“ You have. The same kind. Washy’s is dif- 
ferent. His doctrine is faith without work. Go 
on.” 

“ So I tried to think of some way to bring it 
about. When you told me that Scudder owned 
the Sparrow place I saw my chance. Scudder and 
I consulted. He was willing to lose his tenants 
provided he didn’t lose the rent. The rent was 
nothing; I promised to make that good until our 
season here was over and Eureka could return 
home. But I made it clear that when she did re- 
turn home her father mustn’t return with her. He 
must be provided for somewhere else. Then we 
saw the doctor and Morton, the minister. Morton 
was somewhat prejudiced, owing to Van’s raffle, 
but he’s a pretty decent fellow and seemed to think 
what he called a good action on my part might 
offset even a bedquilt gamble. So between us we 
fixed it up. 

“ Old Sparrow is offered a job as general shov- 
eller and brick carrier over there at the hotel. 
They’re building a new addition, you know. 
Brown, the manager, said he’d take him on, as a 
favor to me. He has been offered the place. If 
he doesn’t accept, why, out he goes. Scudder has 


" THE BEST LAID PLANS” 


229 


told him he can’t stay in his house any longer. You 
should have seen him when we broke the news last 
night.” 

“ S’pose he don’t accept,” I asks. “ What about 
the children? ” 

“ They’ll be looked out for. Lycurgus will 
board at Scudder’s. Eureka will stay with us. 
Editha and the baby will be roomed and fed by the 
minister. The others are to have good boarding 
places and go to school. Every one is willing to 
help the family, but they won’t keep the old rascal. 
It has worked out beautifully.” 

“ Hold on a minute,” says I. “ It’s all right, 
as a plan. But Eureka won’t let her dad suffer, 
even though she knows there ain’t nothing really 
the matter with him. And who’s going to pay all 
the young ones’ board? She can’t.” 

“ I’ll attend to that,” says he, impatient. “ It 
isn’t enough to signify. And it will be all settled 
before Eureka knows it. The old man will take 
the job.” 

“ I’ll bet a cooky he don’t,” I says. “ But it’ll 
make him scratch gravel one way or ’nother. Bully 
for you, Mr. Hartley! I’m glad I’m along to see 
the fun.” 

“ The fun was last night,” says he. “ Caesar! 


230 


MR. PRATT 


how he did cough and groan. And then swear! 
But here’s the rest of the crowd.” 

They was waiting for us on the corner. Dr. 
Penrose was there, and Mr. Morton, and Cap’n 
Benijah Poundberry, chairmen of selectmen, and 
Scudder, and Peter T. Brown, manager of the Old 
Home House. They was all laughing, and think- 
ing the whole thing a big joke. 

“ Mr. Hartley,” says the doctor, “ I wish you 
were to be a permanent resident. There are a few 
more cases of this kind I’d like to have you tackle.” 

We walked on together the rest of the way, 
laughing and talking. Nobody took the business 
serious at all. They all thought Washy would go 
to work when he found ’twas either that or get out 
and hustle for a place to put his head in. 

We marched into the Sparrow yard like a 
Fourth of July parade. Hartley knocked at the 
kitchen door. Editha opened it. 

“ Is your father in? ” asked the Twin. 

“ Yes, sir,” says Editha. “ He’s in. I s’pose 
you’d like to see him, wouldn’t you? Pa, here’s 
Mr. Hartley.” 

There was a groan from the dining-room. Then 
some coughs, like a string of small earthquakes. 
Finally a dreadful weak voice orders us to step 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS " 


231 


right in. The rest of the crowd went on ahead. I 
stopped for a jiffy to speak to Editha. 

“ Where’s the rest of the children? ” I asks. 

“ I sent ’em over to the grocery store on an 
errand,” she says. “ I thought you’d be along 
pretty soon. They took the baby with ’em.” 

“ How’s your dad been since he heard the 
news? ” says I. 

“ Oh, he was going on terrible last night. Had 
nerve spells and fired the chairs around and car- 
ried on so we was all scared. But he went out 
about nine o’clock with a letter he’d wrote, and 
this morning he seems better. Say, Mr. Pratt,” 
she whispers, eager, “ is it true that me and Dewey 
are going to live with the minister’s folks? ” 

“ Maybe so,” says I. “Why?” 

“ Oh! I hope so,” she says. “ Then I could go 
to school, and pa wouldn’t be ’round to jaw us, 
and Reky ’d have a little rest. She does need it so.” 

Think of a twelve-year-old young one talking 
like that. But the children was all grown-ups in 
that family. 

I went into the dining-room. The delegation 
was gathered on one side of the table, and Washy 
was crumpled up in his rocker on the other. He 
looked some scared. 


MR. PRATT 


232 

“ Well, Mr. Sparrow,” Hartley was beginning 
when I come In, “ have you made up your mind 
about the position which this gentleman has been 
kind enough to offer you? ” He pointed to Brown 
as he said It. 

44 Hey? ” asks the Invalid, feeble. 

Martin said It all over again ; he had to stop In 
the middle so ’s to give the candidate for the job 
a chance to cough and turn loose a few groans. 

And all that Washy said when the Twin had 
finished was another u Hey? ” 

Hartley begun to lose patience. 44 You heard 
what I said,” he snaps, sharp. 44 Have you made 
up your mind? ” 

44 Don’t get mad, Mr. Hartley,” pleads the suf- 
ferer, sad and earnest. “ Please don’t. My 
nerves Is dreadful weak this morning and I ain’t 
able to stand It. I’ve had coughing spells ever 
since I got out of bed. Well, I won’t have to 
Unger here much longer. Pretty soon I’ll be laid 
away, and ” 

“Have you made up your mind?” Interrupts 
Martin. 44 Answer quick. The time of these gen- 
tlemen Is valuable.” 

“ Don’t, Mr. Hartley. Please don’t. How can 
you cruellze a poor feller this way? Don’t you 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS " 


233 


know that any kind of stir and rumpus is the worst 
thing for me? Any doctor ’ll tell you that ” 

“ Bosh ! ” ’Twas Doctor Penrose that said it, 
and he stepped forward. “ Bosh! ” says he again. 

“ What’s that? Why, if it ain’t my old friend 
the doctor! I never noticed you was there. I’m 
awful glad to see you, Doc. Seems just like old 
times. You’ll excuse my not getting up, won’t 
you? I’ve Wasted away so since you was here 
that ” 

“ Bosh! ” says the doctor again. “ You’re fat- 
ter than ever. There’s nothing in the world the 
matter with you but pure downright dog laziness. 
Don’t cough on my account. I don’t care to 
hear it.” 

Washy looked at him as reproachful and goody- 
goody as a saint. 

“ I forgive you for them words, doctor,” says 
he. “ I realize I ain’t been able to pay my bill to 
you, and so I can make allowances.” 

“Allowances! Why, you confounded impu- 
dent loafer! I’ve a good mind to ” 

He was purple in the face. Peter Brown 
caught his arm. 

“Ain’t this a little off the subject?” he says. 
“ Look here, Sparrow. We need a good husky 


234 


MR. PRATT 


man about your size at the hotel. We’ll pay him 
ten dollars a week. I’ve offered you the job. Are 
you going to take it? ” 

“ There ain’t nothing in the world I should like 
better, Mr. Brown. I like to work, and ” 

“ All right, then. Get on your hat and come 
along.” 

“ Come along ! Why, how you talk ! If I was 
to stir out of this house ’twould ” 

’Twas Scudder’s turn. “ You’ll have to stir 
mighty quick,” says he. “I won’t have no do- 
nothing tramps in a house of mine. Either take 
this chance or out you go next Saturday, bag and 
baggage.” 

“ Why, Mr. Scudder ! Why, Nate! How can 
you talk so ! Just for a little matter of rent. You 
don’t need it. Ain’t you been telling me that you 
had a couple of soft rich folks over to Horsefoot 
Bar that was paying you a good living and more, 
too, all by themselves. Don’t you remember you 
said ” 

“ Shut up ! ” ’Twas Scudder who got purple 
now. It looked to me like the invalid was having 
all the fun. He seemed to be expecting something 
and playing for time. I guess Hartley thought so 
too, for he says : 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS” 


235 


“ That’s enough of this. It’s plain that he 
doesn’t intend to accept. Mr. Scudder, you have 
given him formal notice. Come on.” 

Then Washy broke down. He sniffed and half 
cried and wanted to know things. The work 
would kill him in a day or so, of course, but he 
didn’t mind that. When he thought of his poor 
fatherless children 

“ The children will be provided for,” says Mar- 
tin. “ I told you that. Mr. Morton will care for 
Editha and the baby.” 

“Mr. Morton? Morton? Seems to me I’ve 
heard that name afore. Ain’t he the gambler? 
The one that come near being run out of town for 
stealing a bedquilt from the poorhouse, or some- 
thing like that? Is he the man to trust with inno- 
cent little children? ” 

There it was again. The minister was red as a 
beet and stammering about “ impertinence ” and 
“ blackguardism.” I thought he’d lick that con- 
sumptive right then and there. It took another 
five minutes to calm him down. And so far we 
hadn’t gained an inch. 

And just then a horse and buggy come rattling 
into the yard. The horse was all over lather, like 
he’d been drove hard, and the buggy w^as white 


236 


MR. PRATT 


with dust. Everybody looked out of the window. 
Sparrow looked and his face brightened up. I 
cal’late ’twas exactly what he had been hoping and 
waiting for. Martin Hartley looked and his eyes 
and mouth opened. So did mine. * 

’Twas Lord James that was driving the buggy, 
and there was a young woman with him. The 
young woman was Agnes Page. 

Agnes jumped from the step and run to the 
kitchen door. In spite of the dust and her clothes 
being rumpled and her hat shook over to one side 
she was as pretty as a picture. The next minute 
she was in the room, staring solemn at all us men. 
And her eyes seemed to look right through a feller. 

“ Why, Agnes — Miss Page ! ” exclaimed Hart- 
ley. Why are you here? What’s the matter? ” 
She didn’t answer him. Just turned to Washy. 
And says she — 

“ Am I in time, Mr. Sparrow? I didn’t get 
your letter until nearly nine, because James was 
delayed at the office. But I hurried right over. I 
was so afraid I would be too late. Am I ? ” 

The invalid looked at her. And, if he’d been 
the picture of misery afore, he was a whole pano- 
rama of it now. He coughed afore he answered. 
She shivered, kind of, at that cough, and I don’t 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS f> 


237 


wonder. If ever there was a graveyard quick-step, 
Washy Sparrow’s cough was it. 

“ No, ma’am,” says he. “ I guess not, but I 
don’t know. The shock of it, and — and all, has 
pretty nigh finished me up, I’m afraid. I don’t 
cal’late I’ll pull through, but I may. Let’s hope 
for the best, anyhow. But, ma’am, if you’d heard 
the things that’s been said to me ! ” 

She whirled around on us and her eyes flashed 
chain lightning. 

“ Aren’t you ashamed ? ” she says. “ Great 
strong men, every one of you, and all banded to- 
gether to torture a poor helpless invalid.” 

A feller’s conscience is the biggest fool part of 
his insides. Now I knew that what we’d been 
doing was exactly the right thing to do, but I felt 
as mean and small as if I’d been caught stealing 
eggs. I kind of shrivelled up, as you might say, 
and tried to scrouge back into the corner. Maybe 
I’d have got there, only the rest of the crowd was 
trying to do the same thing. 

All but Hartley. He was a lot set back, but he 
spoke up prompt. 

“ Miss Page,” said he, “ I’m sure you don’t 
understand. We ” 


She was back at him afore he’d begun. 


238 


MR. PRATT 


“ I think that is exactly what I do — under- 
stand,” she says. “ At any rate, I mean to under- 
stand thoroughly. Mr. Sparrow, what have they 
said to you? ” 

Washy cleared his throat. When he answered 
’twas in a sort of beg-pardon voice. You could 
see how he hated to speak ill of anybody. He 
wouldn’t hurt nobody’s feelings for the world. 
Bless him ! he was a cute shyster, if ever there was 
one. 

“ It’s like I wrote you, ma’am,” says he. 
“ They’ve offered me a place to go to work, and 
I’ve been awful tempted to take it. I want to take 
it. My land! how I want to! But I don’t feel 
able to dig cellars. I wouldn’t last at it more’n a 
few days and then what would become of my fath- 
erless children with nobody to look after ’em? 
And because I think of these things and can’t bring 
myself to — to — passing away from ’em so soon, 
I’m going to be put out of my house and home. 
My little home, that I’ve thought so much of ” 

He had to stop and wipe his eyes. Agnes’ eyes 
were wet, too, and her feet patted the floor. “ But 
why?” says she. “Why?” 

“ I don’t know — that is, for sure, ma’am. You 
see I ain’t been able to earn nothing for some time. 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS }) 


239 


Eureka, poor girl, she’s had to look out for us all. 
And I b’lieve the doctor there, his bill ain’t been 
all paid; and we owe Mr. Scudder some rent; and 
I s’pose likely Eureka would be able to give more 
of her time to the Island work, and maybe for less 
pay, if ” 

“ I see,” says Miss Page, scornful. “ I see. 
And so, for a few dollars you are to be turned out 
of your home. You, a poor sick man ! Oh ! I can 
hardly believe there are such people in the world. 
And yet, I have had some experience.” 

She flashed a look at Martin as she said it. He 
turned white under his sunburn. 

“ Miss Page,” he said, “ you do not understand. 
I must insist that you hear our reasons for this pro- 
ceeding.” 

“ It is not necessary,” she says, cold as ice. “ I 
have heard enough.” 

The minister plucked up spunk to speak. But 
she snapped him up short as pie crust. Then / 
tried it — and got my medicine. 

“ Mr. Sparrow,” says she, “ let them do their 
worst. The children shall come to my school. 
As for you, I mean to — ” Then she turns to 
me. 

“Does Mr. Van Brunt know of this?” she 


240 MR. PRATT 

asks. Course I couldn’t say nothing but I believed 
he didn’t. 

“ Thank goodness! ” she says. And just then 
who should walk in but Van himself. 

“ Hello ! ” says he, surprised. “ Eureka told 
me you were at the village, Martin, so Lycurgus 
rowed me across. One of the children said you 
were here. What is this, a surprise party? And 
Agnes, too! Am I too late for the refreshments?” 

He smiled, but nobody else did. 

“ Edward,” says the Page girl, “ will you do a 
great favor for me? ” 

“ Yours to command, of course,” he answers, 
puzzled. 

“ Will you find a boarding place for Mr. Spar- 
row?” 

“Who? Eureka’s father? Why, certainly. 
What’s the trouble? Is it time for the Sparrows 
to nest again? He can come over to the Island 
with us. There’s plenty of room. Hey, Martin? ” 

“ Never mind your friend, please,” says Miss 
Page. “If he comes will you protect him and 
treat him kindly? Thank you. Then that is set- 
tled. Gentlemen, I believe there is no necessity 
for your further inconveniencing yourselves. Your 
several bills will be paid.” 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS ,} 


241 


I looked at the doctor and he looked at Pound- 
berry. The minister and Brown and Scudder 
looked at each other. Maybe it seems queer that 
we didn’t speak up and make her hear our side — 
the right side. It does seem strange now, I’m free 
to say, but, as for me, I couldn’t have faced her 
then no more than the boy with the jam ’round his 
mouth could face his ma. 

Hartley was the only plucky one. He says, 
swallowing once, as if he was gulping down his 
pride, “ Miss Page,” says he, “ you are treating 
me most unfair. To judge without a hearing is 
not ” 

She held up her hand. There was a kid glove 
on it, and even then I noticed how well that glove 
fitted. 

“ Mr. Pratt,” she says to me, M I want to ask 
you one question. Who is responsible for this? 
Whose idea was it? ” 

I hemmed and hawed. The other fellers might 
not have meant to do it, but somehow their eyes 
all swung round to Hartley. 

“ I see,” she says. “ I thought as much. There 
is a proverb, I believe, concerning what is bred in 
the bone. Thank heaven, to me there are some 
things in this world which outweigh my personal 


242 


MR. PRATT 


convenience and — money. You needn’t answer, 
Mr. Pratt. He pays your salary, I believe.” 

My, but she said it bitter and scornful. Hart- 
ley was white afore, but now he was like chalk. 
He bowed to her, stuck his chin into the air and 
marched out of that house as proud and chilly as 
a walking icicle. The rest of us, all but Van and 
Agnes, trailed along astern, like a parcel of kicked 
dogs. 

Washy sung out to us as we went. “ Good day, 
gentlemen,” he says; “ I hope you’ll come and see 
me sometimes while I’m over to Horsefoot. I 
forgive you free and clear. I haven’t no doubt 
you meant for the best.” 

The doctor and the rest was brave enough when 
we was out of Agnes Page’s sight and hearing. 
They was talking big about what they’d do to 
Sparrow when they had a chance. But I noticed 
none of ’em said much to Hartley. He marched 
ahead, stiff and white and glum. Peter Brown’s 
last word to me was this : 

“ Pratt,” says he, “ if you see a hole in the sand 
anywheres ’tween here and the beach, mark my 
name around it, will you? The way I feel now I’d 
like to crawl into it and pull it after me. One 
about the size of a ten-cent piece would do, and 


“THE BEST LAID PLANS” 


243 


even then I guess there’d be room and to spare for 
the rest of this gang.” 

When I got down to the skiff Van comes run- 
ning to catch up. He caught me by the arm and 
hauled me to one side. 

“ Skipper,” says he, “ what the devil’s the mat- 
ter?” 

I told him in as few words as I could. He 
roared. “ That’s all right,” he says. “ I’ll fix 
that.” 

He went over to his chum and slapped him on 
the back. 

“ Brace up, old man,” he says, “ it’s a mistake, 
and a mighty good joke on you, isn’t it? Of 
course I’ll square you with Agnes.” 

Hartley turned on him so quick that he jumped. 

“ If you please,” says Martin, cutting and clear 
as a razor, “ you will perhaps be good enough to 
mind your own business. If you mention one 
word concerning me to that lady you and I part 
company. Is that thoroughly plain? ” 

’Twas the first time I’d ever heard them two 
have a hard word. The trip to Ozone Island was 
as joyful as a funeral. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 

HE fat was all in the fire. Hartley’s great 



scheme that he thought was going to help 


^ Eureka, and that I cal’lated would be one 
more big boost for him in the Page girl’s eyes, had 
gone to pot to see the kettle bile. Instead of get- 
ting rid of Papa Sparrow, it had fetched that old 
hypocrite right over to eat and sleep and groan 
under our very noses. And, instead of helping 
Martin’s love business, it had knocked the keel 
right out of it and left him stranded with a bigger 
reputation than ever for cold-blooded, mercenary 
money grabbing. Sweet mess, wa’n’t it? 

I snum, I did hate to tell Eureka ! And yet of 
course she was bound to find it out for herself. 
When she went home that night, thinks I, “ I’ll 
catch it to-morrow morning.” And, sure enough, 
next morning she was laying for me. 

She come out to the garden, where I was trying 
to fool myself into hoping that six inches of green 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


245 


string, with a leaf or two hung along it, might bear 
a cucumber some day, and down she sets in the 
heap of dry seaweed by the pig-pen. 

“ Now, then,” says she, sharp, “ I want to know 
all about it.” 

“ Oh! ” says I, looking innocent at the cucum- 
ber string; “ I ain’t give up hope, by no manner of 
means. If the loam don’t blow off, and I’m able 
to lug water enough, we’ll have as much as one jar 
of two-inch pickles off this plantation by the time 
the Heavenlies are ready to quit.” 

“ Humph! ” she sniffs. “ You ought to pickle 
that understanding of yours. It’s too fresh and 
green to keep long, out in this sun. Now you look 
me in the eye and tell me all about it.” 

“About what?” I asks, not looking at her, 
however. 

“ About the doings at our house yesterday. 
Why is Pa coming over here to live? And what 
makes Mr. Hartley so blue and cross? And how 
come that Agnes Page to be mixed up in our 
affairs? Out with it. It’s my family business, and 
I want to know.” 

So I had to tell her. She was pretty mad, and 
mighty sarcastic. 


246 


MR. PRATT 


“ I thought so,” she snaps. 44 Didn’t you know 
no better than that? Didn’t you know that a girl 
who’s as far gone with charity as Miss Page is 
would be sure to go and see Pa and want to do for 
him? I’ve found out that she’s been giving him 
money for medicine and things for over a week. 
Why, a sentimental city woman is Pa’s best holt; 
he can tie ’em in bow knots round his finger. I 
s’pose you thought you could fetch Hartley and 
his girl together all by yourself. Well, you’ve 
done a good job. Now I’ve got to begin it all 
over again.” 

“ It ain’t no use now,” I says. 44 She’s down 
on him for good.” 

44 Rubbish ! Don’t talk so foolish. It’ll be my 
turn next, and my plans won’t go backside front- 
wards, like a crab. And I’ve got to fix Pa, too. 
I’ve been working out a notion about him for two 
or three days. I guess it’s time to be starting it 
a-going.” 

She wouldn’t tell me what the notion was. 
’Twas her turn to have secrets. She seemed 
pleased to have Editha and the children go over 
to the Fresh Air School, because there they could 
be studying their lessons with somebody to look 
after ’em. She liked the idea of Lycurgus’ hiring 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


247 


out to Nate Scudder, too, though she did say that 
she guessed he wouldn’t wear out his pants’ pock- 
ets carting his wages around. 

Next day she stayed at home and shut up the 
house, and that night she and Washy come to the 
Island to stay all the time. They had rooms in 
the back part of the house, three flights up, and 
Scudder sold the Twins bedding and truck enough 
to more than make up for losing the rent of the 
Sparrow house. Van put the wax wreath and 
Marcellus’s picture and the rest of Nate’s “ pres- 
ents ” up in the invalid’s room. He said he 
thought they was kind of appropriate. Washy 
didn’t mind. He said they was lovely and made 
him think of his “ future state.” ’Cording to my 
notion the cook-stove would have been better for 
that. 

Martin and his chum was pretty cool to each 
other for a while, but they soon got over it. 
Hartley was different, though, from what he’d 
been afore. He was more reckless and his “ don’t 
care ” manner was back again; only, now that his 
health was so good, it showed in other ways. 

The two of ’em took to raising the very Old 
Boy. They must be up to something all the time. 
The Island wa’n’t big enough to hold ’em and they 


248 


MR. PRATT 


was crowded over into the village, so to speak. 
They got mixed up with some of the men boarders 
at the hotel and ’twas “ Whoop ! ” and “ Hooray ! ” 
all the time. 

They and the boarders got horses out of the 
livery stable and had races right through the main 
street; going it licketty-cut and scandalizing the 
neighbors and scaring old women into conniption 
fits. Deacon Patterson had a new horse and the 
Deacon happened to be setting in his buggy in 
front of the Boston Dry Goods and Variety Store 
when the racers went by. The racket scared the 
critter and he bolted, and there was the Deacon 
going down the road in the middle of the race, 
hollering “ Whoa ! ” to beat the cars, with his hat 
off and his hair a-flying. Lots of the sewing circle 
women saw him and ’twas town talk for weeks. 
The Deacon was going to have the Twins took up 
and sent to jail, but he didn’t. He prayed for ’em 
in meeting instead. 

Van Brunt got another letter from Agnes pretty 
quick after the race. She’d heard about it and she 
give him fits. Why was it necessary for him — she 
didn’t mention Martin — to shock the community 
and public opinion ? She wanted to know that and 
other things similar. He read a little of the let- 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


249 


ter to Hartley and that’s how I heard it. I’d have 
heard more, probably, only Hartley got up and 
walked off. And he was blue as a whetstone for 
the rest of the day. 

I guess the Talford girl wa’n’t quite so shocked. 
Anyhow me and Van met her up in the village one 
afternoon and she wanted to know all about the 
race. 

“ I should like to have seen that old Mr. Pat- 
terson,” says she. “ He is always so very sol- 
emn and pompous. It must have been killingly 
funny.” 

Van told her the yarn, trimming it up fine as 
usual, and they laughed and had lots of fun over 
it. He went around with her shopping all the 
afternoon and I was forgot altogether. I didn’t 
mind. I don’t hanker for famousness, and the 
way the small boys followed Van Brunt around 
and pointed at him and snickered was too popular 
altogether. I cal’late he’d been preached up to 
them young ones as a horrible example till they 
envied him ’most as much as if he was a pirate. 

Ozone Island was chock full of secrets and 
whisperings by this time. Van kept up his little 
side talks and backyard confabs with Scudder; and 
Hartley seemed to have caught the disease. I see 


250 


MR. PRATT 


him and Nate looking mysterious at each other 
and meeting together in out of the way places time 
and time again. And the mail was getting heavier 
and there was half burned telegram envelopes in 
the stove ashes more’n once. But nobody ever 
mentioned getting a telegram. 

There was so much reading matter ’round the 
place now that Eureka was in her glory. She read 
when she got breakfast, with a book propped up 
on the kitchen table. She read when she dusted, 
holding the dust cloth in one hand and a magazine 
in t’other. She read when she ate. She went up- 
stairs at night reading; and I wouldn’t wonder if 
she read in her sleep. 

Washy had been pretty decent, for him, for the 
first week after he landed in his new quarters. 
But his decency didn’t last long. He begun to fuss 
and find fault and groan and growl. Miss Page 
sent him nice things to eat — and he always ate ’em 
every speck himself — and medicine, which he took 
about a spoonful of and then said ’twa’n’t helping 
him none and give it up. He yelled for Eureka 
every few minutes and she’d have to drop her 
work and run and wait on him. He was a pesky 
outrage and everybody hated him, including Van, 
who said that he was a common nuisance and if 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


251 


’twa’n’t for his promise to Agnes he’d abate him 
with a shot-gun. 

One day Eureka comes out on the porch where 
the Heavenlies was setting, and says she : 

“ Mr. Van Brunt, would you and Mr. Hartley 
be willing for me to cure Pa? ” 

“Cure him?” asks Van, surprised. “Cure 
him? Yes, indeed. Or kill him either,” he adds, 
under his breath. 

Hartley didn’t say nothing. He never spoke to 
old man Sparrow now nor of him, far’s that went. 

“ All right,” Eureka says. “ Thank you.” 

“ What’s the cook got up her sleeve concerning 
the afflicted parent? ” asks Van of me. 

“ I don’t know,” says I. And I didn’t. 

That afternoon Eureka got me to help her lug 
the haircloth lounge from the front parlor out to 
the spare shed, the one we didn’t use. ’Twas a 
little ten by six building that Marcellus had for a 
tool house, and the shingles was falling off and the 
roof and sides full of cracks and knotholes. We 
set the lounge down in there. 

“ What on earth? ” says I. 

“ I’m going to tell you,” says she. “ Mr. Hart- 
ley said I could have the lounge.” 

Then she told me what her plan was. ’Twas a 


252 


MR. PRATT 


mighty good one, and I promised to help along. I 
laughed over it till supper time. 

That evening we was all in the dining-room. 
The weather had changed lately and the nights 
was chilly and windy. ’Twa’n’t pleasant enough 
for the Twins to be on the porch, and Washy had 
come down from his room and was all hunched up 
in front of the stove in the kitchen. Eureka was 
just finishing the dishes. All of a sudden I heard 
her say: 

“Pa, I don’t s’pose you feel well enough to go 
to work? ” 

I could hear her dad’s feet come down off the 
stove hearth with a thump. He started to speak, 
and then, remembering himself, he coughed, as 
hollow as an empty biler. 

“ I asked,” Eureka goes on, “ because I saw 
Mr. Brown yesterday and he said you could have 
that job at the hotel any time you wanted it.” 

“ Hotel job ! ” hollers Washy. 41 How long do 
you cal’late I’d last lugging bricks and digging? 
Ain’t you satisfied to see me slipping into the grave 
day by day, without wanting to shove me under 
all at once? ” 

“ No, I knew you wa’n’t fit to work. But Pa, 
I’ve been hoping to find a way to cure you some 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


253 


day, and now I’ve learned the way. And I’m 
going to try it.” 

Washy coughed again. I was listening with all 
my ears, and I see the Twins doing the same. 

“ Cure? Humph! ” sniffs the old man. “ I’m 
past curing, darter. Don’t you worry about me. 
Let me die, that’s all; let me die. Only I hope 
’twon’t be too slow. Cure ! The doctors give me 
up long spell ago.” 

“ Doctors give you up! What doctors? No- 
body but Penrose, and you’ve said more’n a thou- 
sand times that he wa’n’t no doctor. I’ve been 
reading up lately and I know how real doctors cure 
folks.” 

“ It ain’t no use — ” begins her dad. She cut 
him short. 

“ Your case is kind of mixed-up, Pa,” says she, 
“ I’m free to say, owing to your consumption be- 
ing complicated with nervous dyspepsy. But I’ve 
made up my mind to start in on your lungs and 
kind of work ’round to your stomach. You listen 
to this.” 

She come in the dining-room and took a maga- 
zine out of the chest of drawers. Then she opened 
to a place where the leaf was turned down, and 
went back to the kitchen. 


254 


MR. PRATT 


“ Consumption, Pa,” she says, “ ain’t cured by 
medicine no more. Not by the real doctors, it 
ain’t. You say yourself that all Miss Page’s medi- 
cine ain’t done you no good. Fresh air night and 
day is what’s needed, and you don’t get it here by 
the stove or shut up in your room. You ought to 
live out door. Yes, and sleep there, too.” 

“Sleep out door? What kind of talk is that? 
Be you crazy or ” 

“ Don’t screech so, Pa,” says Eureka, cold as 
an ice chest. “ Folks over on the main will think 
this place is on fire. Listen to this. Here’s a 
piece about consumption in this magazine. They 
call it the ‘ White Plague.’ I’ll read you some 
of it.” 

The Heavenlies was in a broad grin by this 
time. Washy kept yelling that he didn’t want to 
hear no such foolishness, but his daughter spelt out 
different parts of the magazine piece. It told 
about how dangerous shut-up rooms and “ con- 
fined atmospheres ” was, and about what it 
called “ open air sanitariums ” and outdoor bed- 
rooms. 

“See, Pa,” says she; “look at this picture. 
Here’s a tent where two consumptive folks lived 
and slept for over a year. ’Twas thirty below 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


255 


zero there sometimes, but it cured ’em. And see 
this one. ’Twas forty-five below where that shanty 
was, but ” 

The invalid jumped out of his chair and come 
bolting into the dining-room. 

“Take it away! ” he yells, frantic. “If you 
expect me to believe such lies as them you’re ” 

“ They ain’t lies,” says Eureka, following him 
up, and speaking calm and easy. “ They’re true; 
ain’t they, Mr. Van Brunt? ” 

Van smothered his grins and nodded. 

“ True as gospel,” he says. 

“ Yes, course they be. And Pa, I’m going to 
cure you or die a-trying. The old tool-house out 
back of the barn is just the place for you. It’s full 
of holes and cracks, so there’ll be plenty of fresh 
air. And I took the sofy out there this very day. 
You can sleep there nights and set in the sun day 
times. You mustn’t come in the house at all. I 
mean to keep you outdoor all winter, and 
then ” 

The Heavenlies just howled and so did I. 
Washy Sparrow howled, too, but not from laugh- 
ing. 

“ All winter! ” he screams. “ The gal’s gone 
loony! She wants to kill me and get me out of 


256 MR. PRATT 

the way. I sha’n’t stir one step. You hear me? 
Not one step ! ” 

“ This piece says that many patients act that 
way first along. 1 In such cases it is often neces- 
sary to use force.’ Mr. Pratt, will you take Pa 
out to the tool shed? I’ll carry the lamp.” 

Would I? I was aching for the chance to get 
my hands on the little rat. I stood up and squared 
my shoulders. 

“ Mr. Van Brunt,” yells Washy, dodging into 
the corner, “ be you going to set by and see me 
murdered? Didn’t you swear your Bible oath to 
treat me kind? ” 

“ There couldn’t be nothing kinder than curing 
you, Pa,” says Eureka. “ It’s all right, ain’t it, 
Mr. Van Brunt.” 

Van didn’t answer for a second. Then he says, 
like he’d decided, “ Yes, it’s dead right. Go ahead 
and cure him, for heaven’s sake, if you can ! I’ll 
back you up and take my chances.” 

“ My nerves — ” begins Washy. 

“ Nerves,” says Eureka, “ come from the 
stomach. I’ll ’tend to them later. We’ll cure your 
lungs first. Mr. Pratt, fetch him along.” 

I got my fingers on the back of that consump- 
tive’s neck. He fought and hung back. Then I 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


257 


grabbed him by the waist-band with t’other hand. 
He moved then, “ walking Spanish,” like the boy 
in the school-yard. 

Eureka opened the door. “ Nobody can say,” 
says she, emphatic, “ that I let my Pa die of con- 
sumption without trying to cure him. Come along, 
Mr. Pratt.” 

“ Remember, Mr. Sparrow,” says Van, busting 
with laugh, “ it’s all for your good.” 

We went out and across the yard and round 
back of the barn. The Twins come to the door 
to see us off. I could hear ’em laughing even 
after we was out of sight. Eureka shaded the 
lamp with her apron. When we got to the shed 
there was a bran-new padlock on the door of it. 

“ I put it on this afternoon,” says she. “ Pm 
pretty handy at fixing things up.” 

We went into the shed and she put the lamp on 
the floor in the corner. 

“ I guess maybe Mr. Pratt ’ll stay till you get 
undressed, Pa,” she says. “ You tell him the rest, 
Mr. Pratt. Good night.” 

She went out and shut the door. The patient 
set down on the lounge and looked at the cracks 
in the walls. The wind off the bay was singing 
through ’em and there was a steady hailstorm of 


MR. PRATT 


258 

sand coming with it. If fresh air was physic, 
Sparrow was certain to be a well man. 

“ Get undressed,” says I. “ Hurry up.” 

“ I’ll freeze to death,” says he, shivering. 

“ No you won’t. Not in August. Maybe, later 
on, in December, ’twill be different. But, anyhow, 
freezing’s a quick death, so they say, and I’ve 
heard you hankering to die quick ever since I knew 
you. Get into bed.” 

He took off his coat and vest and camped out on 
the lounge. There Was plenty of bed clothes. I 
took up the lamp. Then I looked up at him. 

“ There’s one or two things more,” says I. 
“ To-morrow morning you’ll be for coming into 
the house. Well, you can’t come. You’ll stay out- 
side, same as Eureka says you will. And the skiff 
and sloop are locked and chained, so you can’t run 
away in them. And Scudder won’t take you, nor 
any letters from you, ’cause he’s in the game, too. 
And when Miss Page comes, if she does come, 
don’t you dare tell her one word. If you do — 
well, you won’t die of consumption , anyhow.” 

I pounded my knee with my fist when I said it. 
It’s a pretty average fist, far’s size is concerned, 
and I see him looking at it. 

I said “ Good night ” and went out and locked 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


259 


the door and took away the key. The fresh air 
cure had begun. 

Next day was raw and chilly and the invalid put 
in the hours chasing what few patches of sunshine 
happened to come along. Eureka brought his 
meals out to him. He begged and pleaded to be 
let into the house, but ’twas no go. He spent that 
night in the tool-house, same as he had the first. 

For a week he stayed outdoor. Then he said he 
felt so much better that he guessed he could risk 
a day inside. Eureka was ready for him. 

“ I’m glad your lungs feel better, Pa,” she says. 
“ I thought they would. But, of course, you 
mustn’t come in for months and months yet. I 
guess it’s time to start in on the dyspepsy line.” 

She took a piece of paper out of her dress waist 
and unfolded it. “ I sent a dollar to a doctor that 
advertised in the People’s Magazine,” she says, 
“ and I got this. It’s for dyspepsy, Pa, and par- 
ticular nervous dyspepsy. ‘ A careful diet and 
plenty of exercise,’ ” she read. “ We’ll begin on 
the dieting. ‘ In severe cases patient should take 
nothing but hot milk.’ We’ve got plenty of milk 
— such as ’tis. That’s a comfort.” 

Her dad had been setting on the wash-bench 
back of the kitchen. Now he jumped up off it 


260 


MR. PRATT 


like ’twas red hot. “ Do you have the face to tell 
me,” he screams, “ that I can’t have nothing to 
eat but milk? Why, that’s ” 

“ Doctor’s orders, Pa,” says Eureka. “ I’m 
going by doctor’s orders, and see what they’ve 
done for your lungs already.” 

“ I can’t live on milk! I ain’t a baby. I hate 
the stuff ! I don’t believe no doctor ’d ever ” 

“ Well, we’ll call Dr. Penrose and see what he 
says. I’ll bet he’ll back me up.” 

Washy didn’t take the bet. He knew what Dr. 
Penrose thought of him and his ailments. 

“ Aw, Reky, please — ” he begs. 

“ For your own good, Pa,” says his daughter. 
“ I’ll fetch you the hot milk.” 

She did — a quart of it. He drank it ’cause 
there wa’n’t nothing else. For another week he 
lived on hot skim-milk and cold fresh air. He 
pleaded with the Heavenlies and me, but we 
hadn’t any pity for him. He tackled Scudder, but 
Nate never pitied anybody unless there was money 
in it. He tried smuggling letters to Agnes, get- 
ting Lycurgus to carry ’em; but Lys was in with 
his sister and the letters never got any further than 
Eureka’s pocket. 

’Twas fun for the rest of us, but a kind of nui- 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


26l 

sance in some ways. You see the sight of us eat- 
ing three square meals a day was horrible tantal- 
izing to a dyspeptic with an appetite like Washy’s. 
He’d peek in through the dining-room windows 
while we was at the table, and groan steady and 
loud till dessert time. Van said it reminded him 
of what he called a “tarble dote ” at a Hun- 
garian restaurant in New York. He said there 
was music at both places, but that, on the whole, 
Washy’s music was the best of the two. 

The Sunday of the week following was a mean 
day. A cold rain and considerable wind; more 
like October than August. The invalid set in the 
tool-shed with the door opened and an umbrella 
keeping off the rain that leaked through the cracks 
in the roof. He looked as happy and snug as a 
locked-out cat in a thunder storm. 

“ Aw, Eureka,” says he, when me and his 
daughter went out to the shed with the noon 
bucket of steaming milk. “ Aw, Eureka,” he says, 
“ won’t you let me have something hearty? Only 
a hunk of bread, say? I’ve drownded my insides 
with that thin milk till I feel like a churn. I 
can’t keep on drinking the stuff. The mere sight 
of a cow would make me seasick.” 

But Eureka wouldn’t give in. “ It’s all for 


262 


MR . PRATT 


your good, Pa,” she said. That was what Van 
told him every chance he got. I cal’late them 
words had come to be almost as sickening to him 
as the milk. 

Next morning I got up early and come down- 
stairs. ’Twas blowing hard and still raining. 
Eureka hadn’t turned out yet. I opened the door 
of the kitchen and there I see a sight. 

In the rocking chair by the kitchen stove was 
Washy Sparrow, sprawled out fast asleep. His 
feet was on the hearth of the stove, a piece of pie- 
crust was on the floor by his hand, his head was 
tipped back and his mouth wide open. And his 
face — oh, say ! It was perfect peace and comfort. 

The critter, so it turned out afterwards, had 
hunted around in the night till he found a cellar 
window unlocked. Then he’d crawled in and tip- 
toed up to the kitchen. 

I went upstairs again and routed out the Heav- 
enlies. I wanted ’em to see the show. We stood 
in the door and looked at it. Just then Eureka 
come along. 

“ My soul and body I ” she sings out. 

Her dad heard her and woke up. First he just 
opened his eyes and stretched. Then he set up 
straight and turned round. He turned pale. 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 


263 

“ TE ell f Pa ! ” says Eureka, sharp, “ what sort 
of doings is this? What do you mean? ” 

Sparrow stared at her; then at us. He started 
to speak. Then he happened to notice my fist ; and 
he never said a word. 

“The idea!” says Eureka. “After all I’ve 
done to cure you. Roasting in this hot kitchen and 
eating — is that apple pie crust by your hand? ” 
She stepped across and opened the pantry door. 
“ My sakes alive ! ” she says. “ I swan to man 
if he ain’t ate everything in the buttery! ” 

“ I — I — ” stammers Washy, wild like. “ I — 
I — I didn’t mean to, but I was starved and — and 

half drownded, and ” 

“ Pie! ” says Eureka. “ Well, I never! Now 
we’re in a nice mess; and all to do over again.” 

“ I’m all right now, anyway,” says Washy. “ I 
ain’t coughing none and the grub don’t distress me 
a mite. Not half so much as that cussed blue 
milk.” 

“ All to do over,” says Eureka. “ And I don’t 
know as we’ll ever cure you now. Get out door 
this minute. And you mustn’t eat a thing, not 
even milk, for three or four days. Open that out- 
side door, please, Mr. Pratt.” 

I opened the door. The rain come beating in, 


264 MR. PRATT 

with the wind back of it. It hit Washy like a cold 
wave. 

“ I’m all right j I tell you ! ” he yelled. “ I feel 
line. Better’n ever I was, don’t knows I ain’t.” 

“ Are you sure, Pa ? ” 

“ Sure? Course I’m sure. Don’t I know? I’m 
all cured.” 

“ Well, that’s a mercy,” Eureka says. “ I knew 
’twas the right receipts, but I didn’t think they’d 
work so quick. Mr. Van Brunt, Pa’s cured. He’ll 
take that job at the hotel this very day; just as 
soon as it clears up a little.” 

The Heavenlies shouted and so did I. The 
cured man looked tolerable uneasy. He choked 
up and begun to sputter. 

“ Course you mustn’t go if you ain’t real well 
and cured for good, Pa,” says his daughter. 
“ Maybe you’d better try the tool-house and the 
milk a spell longer.” 

The door was still open. And the wind and 
rain was driving in. Washy swallowed, and an- 
swered slow: 

“ I’ll — I’ll go,” he says. “ But I’ll have to 
work sort of easy first along, so’s ” 

“ Oh, no ! you must work real hard, so’s to get 
the exercise, or you’ll have a relapse. Mr. Pratt, 


THE WHITE PLAGUE 265 

you’ll tell Mr. Brown to see that Pa works the way 
he’d ought to, won’t you ? ” 

I nodded. “ He’ll work,” says I, decided. 

At ten o’clock ’twas clear and I rowed the ex- 
consumptive dyspeptic over to the main and led 
him up to the hotel. I give him some advice as I 
went along. 

That afternoon the Twins did nothing but tell 
Eureka that she was a wonder. 

“ Yes,” says she, “ I cal’late he’s cured, at least 
for a spell. Anyhow, that ‘ Everybody works but 
father ’ song don’t fit our family no more.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE NATURAL LIFE 

W ASHY SPARROW’S going to work 
was the biggest surprise Wellmouth 
had had since old man Ginn, owner of 
the Palace Billiard Pool and Sipio Parlors, got 
converted and joined the Good Templars. No- 
body would believe it, of course, without seeing 
him do it with their own eyes, and there was so 
many folks round the hotel that Peter Brown said 
he was thinking of charging admission. Agnes 
Page heard the news and come posting over to 
find out what sort of cruelizing her pet invalid had 
had to bear. Van Brunt done the explaining; it 
was right in his line. 

“ It was the invigorating atmosphere of Ozone 
Island that did it, Agnes,” he said. “ When we 
have finished ruralizing here I’m considering turn- 
ing the place into a sanitarium. One week of 
Pratt’s chowder and Eureka’s corn muffins, cou- 
pled with the bay breezes and the odor of clam 

266 


THE NATURAL LIFE 


267 

flats and seaweed, would make an Egyptian 
mummy turn flip-flaps. I have to lay violent 
hands on myself every day, or I, too, would be 
seized with the laboring fever.” 

She looked at him, kind of odd. “ That is most 
alarming news,” says she, “ if true. I confess I 
hadn’t noticed the symptoms. Your temperature 
appears to be normal at present.” 

“ It is,” he says. “ I flatter myself that I am 
making a magnificent fight against the disease. 
My most rabid attacks are in the early morning, 
before I get out of bed. Then I feel the insane 
desire for work, hard work, creeping over me. 
But I am firm. I reason thus : ‘ The governor is 
sixty odd and his heart is weak. Think of the 
shock that the news would be to him ? Think ’ — 
and so forth. So I resolve to keep up the fight. 
By the time I am dressed and have had breakfast 
all yearning for work has left me. Don’t you 
think I deserve credit?” 

She said he did. Only he must be careful and 
not get up and work in his sleep. I listened with 
my mouth open as usual. Such crazy drivel from 
grown up men and women was too many for me. 
It wa’n’t intended to be funny, of course, because 
they never smiled. It beat me altogether, and 


268 


MR. PRATT 


Eureka said the same. ’Twas her notion that all 
the lunatics that was crowded out of the asylums, 
or was too rich to be put into ’em was sent to New 
York. It sounded reasonable enough to believe, 
sometimes. 

Agnes saw Sparrow, of course, but Brown was 
by when she see him and Washy didn’t dare say 
but he’d gone to work of his own accord. I 
cal’late that he figgered that the gang of us would 
have killed him if he had. So the Page girl went 
back to Eastwich satisfied. And Eureka went 
home again nights and kept house for Lycurgus 
and her dad. But Hartley looked out that the 
most of the old man’s ten dollars a week was 
turned over to her. 

The Heavenlies quiet Naturalness had pretty 
nigh disappeared altogether now. They was 
restless all the time. Mail was heavy and the 
telegram envelopes in the coal hod and around 
was thicker than ever. And Scudder come to 
Ozone three times a day. 

By September I thought sure they’d be ready 
to quit and go home. They acted to me as though 
they was tired of the whole thing. I thought I’d 
sound ’em, so I says : 

“ I s’pose likely you’ll be for shutting up this 


THE NATURAL LIFE 


269 

shop and getting back to the city ’most any day 
pretty soon now, won’t you? ” 

Van Brunt looked at his chum and Hartley 
looked at him. Then they caught themselves 
doing it, and looked away quick. 

“ Why, skipper! ” says Van, “ what makes you 
say that? ” 

“ Oh, nothing ’special,” says I. “ Only it 
seemed to me that you was kind of nervous and 
fidgety lately. Didn’t know but you was anxious 
to be 4 dealing ’ them stocks of yours, or some- 
thing. You’ve been away from ’em a good while.” 

It was Hartley that answered. “ Van is done 
with the stock market,” he says, quick. “ He has 
sworn never to touch it again.” 

“ That’s so,” says I. “ I remember hearing 
him swear that every ten minutes when we first 
come. But he’s kind of knocked off swearing 
lately, so I forgot. But I did think you fellers 
weren’t quite so keen on the Natural Life business 
as you was. You ain’t read the gospel for a con- 
siderable spell.” 

They both looked sheepish and guilty. 

“ That’s so,” says Van. “ We haven’t. But 
we’ve been so confoundedly busy, gunning, and 
White Plagueing, and so on, that we haven’t had 


270 


MR. PRATT 


time. And we’ve mislaid the book. If I knew 
where it was I should be ” 

“ Here ’tis, right on the mantelpiece,” says I, 
reaching for it and knocking off the dust. “ Why 
don’t you take a set at it now ? It’s too foggy to 
do much outside.” 

So they done it, Hartley reading, and Van lis- 
tening. But ’twas a short session. When I come 
in, about fifteen minutes later, the book was bot- 
tom up on the floor and the Twins was dealing 
what they called “ cold hands ” with cards, for a 
quarter a hand. 

That week was when we reaped our harvest 
from the garden. Two middling lean cucumbers 
and a tomatter that was suffering from yellow 
jaundice. They was pretty sick vegetables, but 
the Heavenlies seemed to think they was some- 
thing wonderful. They made more fuss over ’em 
than if they was solid gold. And they digested as 
if they was, too. 

News come that Dewey, the Sparrow baby, was 
sick with a cold over to the Fresh Air School and 
Eureka was worried. Finally she decided to go 
over there for a day or so and see to him. Lycur- 
gus would look out for Pa. So she went and me 
and the Twins was left alone. 


THE NATURAL LIFE 


271 


The day she went was beautiful and clear. Hot 
as July, and not a breath of wind. It acted to me 
like a weather breeder, and I said so ; but all I got 
for the prophesying was Van’s calling me a Jere- 
miah again. He had planned a gunning cruise 
for the next day. 

That night I woke up about twelve o’clock and 
Marcellus’s old slab castle was shaking like as if 
it had the palsy. The wind was roaring and 
screeching and the rain was just swashing against 
the windows. I turned out and put in a lively half 
hour shutting blinds and making things fast. 
Usually September is a pleasant month down our 
way, but sometimes we get a regular gale, and, 
when we do, we get all the back numbers without 
subscribing for ’em. I was soaking wet when I 
got to bed again. 

Next morning ’twas worst than ever. The bay 
looked like a tortoise shell cat in a fit, just a whirli- 
gig of black and white and yellow water. Scudder 
managed to get across, but his milk cans had upset 
in the dory and he said he wouldn’t risk another 
trip till she faired off some. 

Along about noon the tool-shed — the late la- 
mented Washy’s boarding house — blew down 
with a bang. Then the Dora Bassett broke loose 


272 


MR. PRATT 


from her moorings and drove into the cove head 
first. She was bound to bang herself to flinders 
unless somebody got to her quick, so out I went 
into the storm. I did think maybe the Heavenlies 
would offer to turn to and help, but they was 
pitching half dollars at a crack in the floor and was 
too busy to think of anything else. 

I had a sweet time ploughing through the sand 
against that wind and rain, and when I got to the 
cove my job was cut out for me. The sloop was 
hard and fast aground on the flat and the tide was 
coming in. She couldn’t stay where she was, so I 
worked for two hours up to my waist in ice water, 
and more a-pouring on to me from the clouds, get- 
ting her off and made fast. The Twins did help 
me long towards the last part of it. That is to say, 
they set in an upstairs back window and pounded 
on the glass and made signs — superintending, as 
usual. I wish they could have heard some of the 
language I hove back at ’em. Then they’d have 
realized how grateful I was. 

I got supper without changing my wet clothes, 
and when I woke up next morning I decided with- 
out no argument that something else had happened. 
I was took with the galloping rheumatiz — my old 
trouble — and couldn’t move, scarcely, without 


THE NATURAL LIFE 


273 


howling same as a dog with his tail shut in a door. 
The fire was out — the old chimbley had un- 
loaded half of its top rigging in to the wind — the 
storm was bad as ever, and there I was laid up on 
the corn-husks. The Heavenlies was worried. 
Breakfast was somewheres ’round the next corner. 

“ Too bad, old man,” says Hartley. “ What 
can we do? ” 

“Do?” I answers, between yells. “I don’t 
care what you do. Only don’t bother me. Ow ! 
O-o-o-o! my shoulder!” 

“But what’ll we do for eatables?” asks Van 
Brunt. 

I liked them fellers first rate and they knew it. 
But now they made me mad. 

“ Do? ” says I. “ Do ? Why, scratch for your 
living, same’s I’ve had to all my days! Work, 
consarn you ! work! ” 

I said considerable many other things. ’Twas 
a sort of jerky talk — I had to stop every minute 
to attend to my shoulder — but there was meat in 
it. They heard some plain truth that nothing but 
rheumatiz could have fetched out of me. I didn’t 
skip nothing — leastways I tried not to. I hope it 
done ’em good; it seemed to help me a heap. 

They went to work, but they was way down in 


274 


MR. PRATT 


the primer class so far as that branch of learning 
was concerned. I could hear things falling around 
in the kitchen and a million matches, more or less, 
a-scratching, and I judged that Hartley was trying 
to build a fire. And under my window there was 
the dickens of a thumping and a most astonishing 
number of cuss words, so I gathered that Van was 
chopping wood. 

I managed to hobble downstairs about half past 
ten, but I was in plenty of time for breakfast. I 
was feeling too mean to have any appetite — which 
was a mercy, and I’m thankful for it. We had 
smoked mush, Wall Street style, and fried eggs 
with cinders, and one cup of coffee for three. But 
that cup was strong enough — owing to Hartley’s 
letting it bile for two hours — so nobody wanted 
any more. 

The Twins was pretty well wore out by this time, 
so neither of them would wash dishes. They 
chucked ’em into the kitchen sink and left them 
there. Then they put in three or four hours look- 
ing out of the window and swearing at the 
weather. I stayed in the armchair by the fireplace 
and did little or nothing but groan and rub alcohol 
on my lame shoulder. ’Twa’n’t a joyful kind of 
experience, but ’twas the first real daytime rest I’d 


THE NATURAL LIFE 


275 


had since I got Naturalized. And, I own up, I 
got a good deal of comfort watching the Heaven- 
lies try to do for themselves. 

Mind you, if the thing had happened when they 
first lit on Horsefoot Bar, when they was full of 
simplicity and the love of it, I cal’late they’d have 
stood it better. But now they was about sick of 
the Island anyway, only one was afraid to say so 
and t’other dassent. So the more the work piled 
up the uglier they got. 

Dinner was served at four o’clock; scorched 
eggs again, and coffee. No dishwashing. ’Twas 
storming hard as ever and the draft kept both 
the stove and fireplace roaring, so more wood had 
to be chopped. 

“ Martin,” says Van Brunt, “ go out and cut 
that wood, will you ? The axe is by the woodpile 
— that is to say, it’s there if this blessed cyclone 
hasn’t blown it out to sea.” 

Hartley was poking at the stove, with his face 
and clothes all covered with ashes. 

“ Cut it yourself,” says he, brisk. “ You’re 
doing nothing.” 

“ I cut it before,” snaps his chum. “ Think 
I’m a steam engine? ” 

He grabbed up the day-a fore-yesterday’s news- 


276 


MR. PRATT 


paper and went to reading. Hartley poked at the 
stove a spell and then went to the closet and got a 
cigar. Van looked up and saw him. 

“Hand me one of those,” says he, motioning 
towards the cigar. 

“ There isn’t any more. This was the last one 
in the box.” 

“ The devil it is! And you take it? Well, by 
George ! ” 

“ Now, see here. I saw you take four this fore- 
noon, and this is only my second. Don’t be a prize 
Pig-” 

The stove ashes got into his mouth and nose 
just then, so he had a fit of sneezing. When 
’twas over he slammed the poker into the corner 
and went to the window. 

“ Where’s that idiot Scudder? ” he asks. 

“You mean Nature’s Nobleman?” says I, 
smooth and calm. “ Oh, he won’t show up for a 
day or so. Sea’s too high to risk his dory. Dories 
cost money.” 

Van sat up straight. “ You’re bluffing, aren’t 
you, skipper? ” he asks, troubled. “ It isn’t pos- 
sible that that rascal will stay at home and not 
come near us.” 

“ Rascal? ” says I. 


“ Rascal? Oh! yes, yes. 


THE NATURAL LIFE 


277 


No, the ‘ rough diamond ’ won’t trust himself 
afloat this weather. He’s too expensive a jewel 
for that. We’ll have to do without milk.” 

“ Milk be hanged ! It’s my mail I want. Why, 
I’m expecting ” 

He bit the sentence in two and looked quick at 
his partner. But Hartley was scowling and star- 
ing out of the window. I guess he hadn’t 
heard. 

“ That fireplace needs filling,” says I, after a 
while. “ It’ll be mighty damp and chilly here if 
the fire goes out.” 

“ Why don’t you chop that wood, Van? ” asks 
Hartley, kind of fretful. 

“ Chop it yourself. My hands are blistered 
enough already.” 

“ No more than mine. That confounded stove 
has fixed me. Where I’m not burned I’m scraped 
raw.” 

Then there was another spell of saying nothing. 

“ Fire’s most gone,” I suggests, by and by. 

“ Let it go,” says Van. Hartley didn’t speak. 

“ Now see here,” I says, decided. “ I’ve got 
the rheumatiz and I don’t want to get any more 
cold. You fellers have pretended to think some- 
thing of me. If you don’t want my remains on 


278 MR. PRATT 

your hands, and a funeral to pay for, you’ll chop 
that wood.” 

Martin got down from the window seat, mov- 
ing stiff and lame. 

“ You’re right, Sol,” says he. “ We are un- 
grateful beasts. I’ll chop that wood.” 

“ Hold on, old man,” breaks in his chum. 
“ You sha’n’t be the only game sport. I’ll match 
you for the job.” 

So they matched cents and Van Brunt got stuck. 
He yanked on his hat and coat and went out, bang- 
ing the door. Hartley tackled the cookstove again. 
’Twas time to be thinking of supper, if we was 
going to have any. 

Van was gone a long time and he come in soaked 
with sweat and rain and broke up generally. The 
wood looked like it had been chewed. I cal’late 
they don’t do much chopping in the Street. 

He slatted himself into a chair, wet clothes and 
all. Then he commenced to cuss the Island and 
everything that grew or moved on it. 

“ What we ever came to this lonesome fag end 
of creation for, anyway,” says he, “ is ” 

“ What? ” I hollers. “ I don’t understand you. 
You can’t mean — what place are you talking 
about?” 


THE NATURAL LIFE 


279 


“ This place. This sand-scoured, blown out 
heap of desolation. Ozone Horsefoot Bar Island, 
or whatever you call it.” 

“ Well! ” says I. “ Are you crazy? Mr. Van 
Brunt, I’ve heard you yourself say that this island 
was all that’s lovely.” 

“ Oh, shut up ! ” he snaps. 

“ Jolliest old ark you ever saw,” I went on, 
quoting from memory. “ ‘ Air to breathe, ver- 
anda to set on, ozone by the keg. Man alive, it’s 
Paradise ! ’ ” 

He ripped out an order for me to go some- 
wheres as far away from Paradise as a feller could 
think of. 

Supper was ready by seven. All we had to eat 
was a hunk of dry cornbread and two eggs. Oh, 
yes ! and the tea. Hartley biled some tea that was 
a kind of herb mush. Strong and thick enough 
for a stick to stand up straight in. And there 
wa’n’t clean dishes to go around, so some of ’em 
had to be washed. 

I was having a fairly good time. Wood must 
be chopped again and they matched cents. Blessed 
if Van didn’t get the short end, as usual. His 
talk was pretty nigh pitiful. It would have 
brought tears to a mule’s eyes; I know it did to 


280 


MR. PRATT 


mine. The sight of Martin’s upsetting the tea- 
kettle and getting next door to scalded was the 
only thing that comforted him. 

He got a letter out of his pocket and went to 
reading it. The envelope dropped on the floor. 
It had printing on one corner and Hartley hap- 
pened to glance at it. Then he tiptoed up behind 
his chum and peeked over his shoulder. 

“Ed Van Brunt!” he sings out. “What’s 
that you’ve got there? ” 

T’other Twin jumped and looked scared. He 
stuffed the letter back into his pocket. 

“ It’s nothing,” says he, stuttering. “ Nothing 
but an old letter.” 

“ It’s a broker’s letter,” says Hartley. “You 
villain, you’ve been speculating! ” 

First off, Van Brunt was for denying every- 
thing. But ’twas no use. His chum had read the 
letter. 

“ You’ve been trading in stocks,” he says, sol- 
emn. “ You, that have sworn over and over 
again never to touch the market! You! ” 

“ I’m mighty sorry, Martin,” begs Van. “ It 
was a miserable cheap thing to do. I don’t know 
what you mi^st think of me, old man. But, you 
see, it got so deadly dull here, and when I saw 


THE NATURAL LIFE 


281 


the Post that day, it said that Tea Lead was a 

good purchase. I wrote Smythe and he ” 

u Tea Lead? ” breaks in Hartley. “ Have you 
been buying Tea Lead? ” 

“ Yes, I have. I’m carrying a pretty good load 
of it, too, worse luck. Scudder has been bringing 
my letters and telegrams, and now that he doesn’t 
come, why ” 

“ Wait a minute ! Has Scudder been looking 
out for your wires and orders? ” 

“ Yes, he has. Oh, I’ve played you mean and 
low enough, Martin. Might as well make a clean 
breast of it, though it will probably smash our 
friendship. I’ve paid Scudder three dollars a 
day to attend to things, and say nothing to you. 
It’s ” 

Hartley didn’t seem to hear nothing but the 
last sentence. Now he interrupted. 

“ Three dollars ! ” he says, low. “ Three dol- 
lars ! Why, the confounded grafter’s been charg- 
ing me fivel” 

And there it was ! The cat out of the bag and 
both Heavenly Twins tarred with the same brush. 
That’s what Nate’s secrets and the talks behind 
the barn, and all, had meant. Van Brunt had 
been bucking the Tea Lead deal ever since he read 


282 


MR. PRATT 


the Post that day, and Martin had begun after his 
row with Agnes. And both of ’em bribing Nate 
Scudder to keep his mouth shut. 

First they was provoked and mad at themselves 
and each other. Then they got to laughing. 

“Whew!” says Van, wiping his forehead; 
“ you and I came here to rest and break off from 
business worry. And I’ve worried more in the 
last month than I have before since my big deal. 
It’s hard to teach old dogs new tricks, isn’t it, 
Martin? ” 

“ You’re dead right, old chap,” says Hartley. 

They was going to turn in soon after this, but 
when they went upstairs they found the rain had 
leaked in through the ell roof and their feather 
beds was sopping wet. Down they come again, 
mad clean through and calling Marcellus’s heir- 
loom everything but a nice place. 

“You’d better set down and rest yourselves a 
spell,” says I. “ It’ll do you good. I’m sorry 
I ain’t been able to help you more to-day, but 
there’s one thing I can do; I can help you do what 
you call ‘ improve your minds.’ I’ll read you 
some out of that Natural Life book. Hand it to 
me, will you? ” 

Van jumped for the book'. But he didn’t hand 


THE NATURAL LIFE 283 

it to me. Not much! He drew back his arm 
and banged that book into the fireplace so hard 
that I thought ’twould knock the bricks out at the 
back. 

“ Well ! ” says I, my mouth opening like a clam 
shell. “ Well l The Natural Life! ” 

“The Natural Life be d — d!” says Edward 
Van Brunt. 

And Martin Hartley says “ Amen.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


: ACROSS THE BA Y 

M ARTIN,” says Van Brunt, “ I guess it’s 
the only safe way. I’ll go out on the 
next train.” 

We was at the dinner table when he said it. 
’Twas one o’clock of the day after the Natural 
Life sermon went up in smoke. The weather was 
still pretty mean, the sky being all clouded over 
and the sea running high. But it had stopped 
raining and the gale seemed to be petering out. I 
was a whole lot better and was able to turn out 
and work. 

I had my hands full that morning, too. All 
three of us was close to starvation, after twenty- 
four hours of short rations, and it took some time 
to get us filled up. Then I had the pig and hens 
to see to. The poor critters’ lives had been more 
Natural even than ours — they hadn’t had nothing 
to eat. The pig was in particular trouble. The 
rain had turned his pen into a sort of lake and 
he was playing Robinson Crusoe on a seaweed 

284 


"ACROSS THE BAY 


285 

island in the middle of it. The way he grunted 
for joy when I looked over the fence was human — 
yes, sir, human. 

Scudder hove in sight about ten and the Heaven- 
lies fairly fell on his neck when he stepped out of 
the dory. But they warn’t so happy when he’d 
spun his yarn. It seemed that the gale had blown 
down the telegraph poles and tangled up the wires 
and no messages could get through either way, 
and wa’n’t likely to for two or three days. 

’Twas that that upset the Twins. The Tea 
Lead market might be tied up in a knot, for what 
they knew, and their “ friends ” in the Street 
might be robbing ’em right and left. I picked up 
from their talk that now was the most ticklish 
time, something about “ passing a dividend,” or 
the like of that. So that’s what they argued about 
at the dinner table; and it was decided that Van 
should go to New York right off, and pick up what 
might be left after their chums and the rest of the 
forty thieves had got through shaking the contri- 
bution box. 

“ I’ll leave at once,” Van says; “ and be in town 
to-morrow morning. If all goes well I’ll be back 
here next day. Meanwhile, you, Martin, can be 
arranging matters with Scudder.” 


286 


MR. PRATT 


He meant arranging for our quitting Ozone 
Island for good. They was as anxious now to get 
out of “ Paradise ” as they had been to move into 
it. If I mentioned a word of Natural Life they 
all but threw things at me. 

I expected for sure that they’d lick Nate Scud- 
der for charging his dry-season rates for secret 
keeping. But they never mentioned it to him. 
When I spoke of it to Van Brunt, he laughed. 

“ Oh, Scudder’s all right,” he says. “ He had 
a corner in secrets and squeezed the shorts, that’s 
all. That’s legitimate. Scudder has a talent of 
his own.” 

“ Yes, and he’s making it ten talents in a hurry, 
like the feller in Scripture,” says I. 

“ Well, he doesn’t hide it in a napkin, anyway,” 
laughs Van. 

“ No,” says I. “ I believe he uses one of Huldy 
Ann’s stockings.” 

About three o’clock we got into the skiff, the 
three of us, and rowed to the main. ’Twas a hard 
wet row. I judged the gale wa’n’t all over yet. 
We walked up as far as Nate’s and there he was 
waiting in his buggy to drive Van Brunt to the 
Wellmouth depot. Martin and Van said good- 
by and had a final pow-wow over the Tea Lead. 


ACROSS THE BAY 


287 


“ Good-by,” says I. “ Ain’t got any real gilt- 
edged expensive secrets you want kept while you’re 
gone, have you? I’d like to squeeze a short or 
two, myself.” 

You ought to have seen Nate Scudder bristle up 
and glare at me. But his passenger only laughed, 
as usual. 

“ No,” he says, “ not a one. My conscience is 
clear. But I may unearth a few while I’m away.” 

Well, he did. But not the kind he expected. 

I had to step into Nate’s house to get a few 
eggs. Our own hens was too weighted down 
under the Natural to be working overtime. Huldy 
Ann had the remnants of a nicked blue set of dishes 
that was handed down from her great aunt on her 
grandmother’s side, and she thought maybe Hart- 
ley ’d be interested at a dollar a nick. It took so 
long to make her believe he wa’n’t, that we wasted 
an hour or more there. When we got to the hill 
by the beach ’twas ’most five o’clock. 

“ The wind’s hauled clear around,” says I. 
“ We ain’t had all the dirty weather yet. This ’ll 
be a bad night in the bay.” 

Just then from behind us come the rattling of a 
wagon and the thumping of a horse’s hoofs. 
Somebody was driving our way like all get out. 


288 


MR. PRATT 


“ Who in time — ? ” I says. “ Runaway, ain’t 
it?” 

But ’twas no runaway. In another minute, a 
horse all lather, hauling a buggy all mud, comes 
bouncing over the hummocky road and down the 
hill. A girl was driving it. 

“ Whoa ! ” she screams, shrill. The horse 
stopped like he was glad of the chance. 

“Eureka Sparrow!” I sings out. “What in 
the name of goodness ? ” 

’Twas Eureka, and the team was the one that 
the Fresh Airers had hired for the season. The 
girl looked as if she’d been through the war. She 
had a shawl pinned ’round her but it had slipped 
down ’most to her elbows, and her hat was over 
on the back of her neck. 

“What’s the matter?” I asks. “Is Dewey 
>> 

“ Dewey’s all right,” she says, leaning from the 
buggy. “ It’s little Dennis — Redny. He’s aw- 
ful sick — and — where’s Mr. Van Brunt?” 

“ Gone to New York,” says Hartley, stepping 
up to the wheel. “What is it? Tell me about 
it.” 

She was almost crying. “ The poor little 
feller,” she says; “he was took this morning. 


ACROSS THE BAY 


289 


Pains, and such suffering. We sent for Dr. 
Bailey and he was sick in bed himself. Then 
James drove over for Dr. Penrose, and he’d gone 
up to the city to a medical society meeting. There 
wa’n’t nobody left but that new doctor at West 
Eastwich, Doctor Duncan,' and nobody likes him. 
I wouldn’t have him to a sick cat. He says it’s 
appendi — appendi — something or other.” 

“ Appendicitis? ” asks Hartley. 

“ Yup. That’s what he says. And he wants 
an operation to-morrow. And Miss Agnes don’t 
trust him, and she’s all upset. She thinks more 
of that boy — ! And she sent me for Mr. Van 
Brunt, and ” 

“ Sol,” asks Martin, quick. “ Is this new doc- 
tor a good one ? ” 

“ No, no ! ” says I. “If he said I had diphthery 
I’d be sure ’twas gout. And there ain’t another 
doctor nowheres around.” 

“ There’s one,” says Eureka, “ if we could only 
get him. Miss Talford read in the paper day 
before yesterday that Doctor Jordan, the big stur- 
geon ” 

“ Surgeon,” says I. 

“ All right, surgeon then. He’s at the Wapa- 
tomac House for a week. But he probably 


290 


MR . PRATT 


wouldn’t come and the telegraph wires are down 
and nobody thought to write in time. And that 
Doctor Duncan thing, he says he’ll operate to- 
morrow morning. If he does he’ll kill the boy 
sure, just as he done to Emeline Macomber’s 
child. What shall we do? Poor Miss Agnes! 
Can’t nobody help her? ” 

“ How can I get to Wapatomac? ” asks Mar- 
tin, sharp and quick. 

“ You can’t,” says I. u Not in time to get the 
doctor. He must reach Eastwich on that morning 
train or ’twill be too late. The last train has 
gone to-night. There ain’t another till eight 
o’clock to-morrow. If you took that ’twouldn’t 
reach Wapatomac till ten, and that’s no good.” 

We was silent for a second. Then Eureka 
jumped up in the buggy and clapped her hands. 

“ You can get him! ” she cries, her black eyes 
snapping sparks. “ Oh, you can! ” 

“ How? ” Martin and me said together. 

She pointed towards Ozone Island. 

“The sailboat!” she said. “The Dora Bas- 
sett! Sail over in her. Then he’ll come on the 
morning train.” 

I swung around and looked at the waves and the 
clouds. Wapatomac was clear across the bay, 


ACROSS THE BAY 


291 


miles and miles away. And a night like this was 
likely to be ! 

“Lord!” says I. “It’s crazy! We’d never 
live ” 

But Martin Hartley was already half way to 
the skiff. Of course he didn’t know the risk, and 
I did, but — well, there. 

“ I’ll go,” says I to Eureka. “ You head for 
the school fast as your horse can travel. Tell the 
Page girl not to let Duncan touch the boy till 
the Jordan man comes or the train comes without 
him. You understand? ” 

“You bet you!” says she. “It’s splendid! 
We’ll save the boy and Mr. Hartley will be all 
right with her . Oh, I’m so glad Mr. Van Brunt 
wa’n’t here ! ” 

She whirled the horse around and off she went. 
I give one more look at the weather and then ran 
after Hartley. Save the boy! A considerable 
bigger chance of not saving ourselves. Well, my 
school teacher always used to say I’d be drowned 
some day — if I wa’n’t hung first. 

I had one reef in when the Dora Bassett swung 
clear of the outside point of Ozone Island cove. I 
hated to take another, for I wanted to make time. 


MR. PRATT 


292 

But I had to take it afore we tacked at the end of 
the first leg. ’Twas pretty nigh a dead beat and 
the sloop was laying over till I thought sure she’d 
fill. The waves was as big, almost, as ever I see in 
the bay, and when one would fetch us on the star- 
board bow the biggest half of it would shoot clean 
from stem to stern. We was soaked afore we’d 
hardly started. It couldn’t have been much worse 
unless ’twas the middle of February. 

I had the tiller and Hartley was for’ard in the 
cockpit. I was using the mainsail altogether, al- 
though later on I did use some of the jib to help 
her point up to wind’ard. There was plenty of 
water and would be for hours, so I could give her 
the centerboard full. That didn’t bother us — 
not then. 

I was too busy to speak and Martin didn’t seem 
to care to. He set there, looking out ahead, and 
when he turned, so’s I could see his face, it was 
set and quiet. And in his eyes was the look that 
I’d seen there once afore — the day of the pig race. 
I wouldn’t have known him for the reckless, lazy 
chap he’d been for the last month or so. 

The only thing he said to me at this time was, 
as I remember it, something like this: 

“ I know that Doctor Jordan,” he says. “ I 


ACROSS THE BAY 


293 


met him at Cambridge at a football game. I was 
there at college and father came over for the game. 
The doctor was one of father’s friends.” 

“ That’s lucky,” says I. “ Maybe that ’ll give 
you some pull.” 

“ Perhaps so,” says he. 

“ If he won’t come,” I asks, “ what ’ll you 
do?” 

“ He’ll have to come,” was all the answer he 
made. 

Even this little mite of talk meant hollering 
your lungs loose. The wind was rising all the 
time, the sea kept getting more rugged as we got 
where the bay was wider, and the splashing and 
banging was worse than a waterwheel working 
double watches. After awhile I made Hartley 
set side of me, so that, when I wanted anything, I 
could grab his arm. 

This was after it got dark. And it got dark 
early. Likewise it begun to rain. The storm 
that we’d had for the last few days seemed to be 
blowing back over us. Seems as if it ought to 
have rained and blown itself out by this time, but 
we had proof that it hadn’t. 

We wa’n’t making scarcely anything on our 
tacks. The Dora Bassett’s a good wind’ard boat, 


294 


MR. PRATT 


too, but she’d fall off and fall off. By and by the 
dark and rain got so thick that I couldn’t see the 
shore lights, and I had to run by compass and 
guess. There wa’n’t likely to be any other blame 
fools afloat to run into us, still I gave Hartley a 
horn to blow in case there should be. 

’Twas lucky I did. Along about twelve, when 
we was somewheres in the middle of the bay — off 
Sandy Bend, I should think — it seemed to me that 
I heard a toot in answer to one of Hartley’s. He 
heard it, too, I guess, for he commenced to blow 
hard and fast. ’Twan’t much, use, for any- 
thing that was to wind’ard of us wouldn’t have 
heard a sound. And we only heard that one, 
I judge, as the noise was blown past us down 
the gale. We listened and listened, but no more 
come. 

All at once we both yelled. Out of the muddle 
of rain and black comes poking a big jibboom and 
a bowsprit. Next minute a two-master, with only 
a jib and reefed fo’sail set, went booming by just 
under our stern. I could see a wink of her 
for’ard lights, and a glimpse of a feller holding a 
lantern by her rail and staring down at us. His 
face was big-eyed and scared. I’ve wondered 
since how ours looked to him. All the rest was 


ACROSS THE BAY 


295 


black hull and waves and roaring. A mackerel 
boat trying to run into Naubeckit Harbor, I guess 
she was. I cal’late the afternoon lull had fooled 
’em into trying. 

We didn’t say nothing. Only Hartley looked 
up at me and grinned. I could see him in the 
lantern light. I shook my head and grinned 
back. 

All the time I kept thinking to myself, “ Sol 
Pratt, you old gray-headed fool, this is your final 
bust of craziness. You can’t make it; you knew 
afore you started you couldn’t. You’ll be in 
among the shoals pretty soon and then you and the 
Dora Bassett ’ll go to smithereens and cart that 
poor innocent city man with you. He don’t know 
that, but you do. And all on account of a red- 
headed little toughy from the back alleys of New 
York, and a girl that ain’t none of your relations. 
You deserve what’s coming to you.” 

And yet, even while I was thinking it, I was glad 
I was making the try. Glad for Redny’s sake; 
particular glad on account of what it might mean 
to Martin and Agnes; and glad, too, just out of 
general cussedness. You see, ’twas like a fight; 
and there’s a heap of satisfaction once in a while in 
a real old-fashioned, knock down and drag out, 


296 


MR. PRATZ 


rough and tumble fight — that is, when you’re 
fighting for anything worth the row. 

The storm kept on; seemed as if ’twould never 
let up. And we kept on, too, three reefs in by this 
time, and the jib down. And with every tack I 
cal’lated we was making better headway towards 
the bottom than anywheres else. I couldn’t see 
nothing to get my bearings from, and hadn’t no 
idea where we was, except the general one that, up 
to now, and by God’s mercy, we was afloat. 

Then, at last, the gale begun to go down. A 
landsman wouldn’t have noticed the change, but I 
did. It stopped raining, and the wind was easing 
up. By and by the haze broke and I caught a 
glimpse of Middle Ground light, almost abreast 
of us. I unbuttoned my ileskin jacket and looked 
at my watch. Half-past two, and only three- 
quarters of the way to Wapatomac. We’d been 
eight hours and a half coming a distance that I’ve 
made over and over again, in that very sloop, 
in less than three. Hartley caught my sleeve. 

“Will we get there?” he shouts. His face 
was all shining with the wet and his hair was too 
heavy with water even to blow in the wind. 

“ Don’t know,” I hollers back. “ We’ll try.” 

He nodded. The clearing of that haze had 


ACROSS THE BAY 


297 


helped me considerable. I could sight my marks, 
the lights, now, and we made faster time. 

At last, after what seemed a fortnight more, 
come the first streak of gray daylight. The clouds 
was breaking up and it would be a nice day later 
on, I judged. But there was a living gale still 
blowing and the waves was running savage over 
the shoals ahead. The channel was narrowing up 
and I had to watch out every second. I sent Hart- 
ley amidships to tend centerboard. 

We beat in through Long Point Reach. The 
life-saving station is on the Point, just abaft the 
lighthouse. I see the feller in the station tower 
open the window and lean out to watch us. I cal- 
’late he wondered what asylum had turned that 
pair of lunatics loose. 

Past the Point, and now we come about for the 
run afore the wind up the narrows. Wapatomac 
village was in plain sight. 

“ With any sort of luck,” says I, “ we’ll be 
alongside the dock by quarter-past five. The down 
train leaves at twenty-five minutes to eight. You 
can thank your stars, Mr. Hartley.” 

’Twas a pretty cock-sure thing to say, and I 
ought to have known better than to crow afore we 
was out of the woods. But we’d come through so 


298 MR. PRATT 

far enough sight better than a reasonable man 
could expect. 

The narrows is a wicked place. The channel 
is fairly straight, but scant width, and on each side 
of it is a stretch of bars and rips that are bad 
enough in decent weather. Now they was as good 
an imitation of as salt-water Tophet as I want to 
see. Strip after strip of breakers, with lines of 
biling, twisting slicks and whirlpools between. 
And the tide tearing through. 

I sent Hartley for’ard to look out for shoals. 
He had one knee on the edge of the cabin roof and 
was climbing up, when I happened to glance astern. 
There was an old “ he ” wave coming — a regular 
deep water grayback. 

“ Look out ! ” I yells. “Standby!” 

That wave hit us like a house tumbling down. 
Pd braced myself and was, in a way, ready for it, 
but Hartley wa’n’t. He was knocked for’ard on 
his face. Then, as the bow jumped up, he w r as 
chucked straight backwards, landing on his shoul- 
der and left arm against the centerboard well. He 
turned a full somerset and his feet knocked mine 
from under me. Down I went and the tiller was 
yanked out of my hands. 

Waves like that hunt in droves, generally speak- 


ACROSS THE BAY 


299 


ing. The next one was right on schedule time. 
Up we went, and sideways like a railroad train. 
Then down, “ Bump ! ” on the bottom. 

Up again, and down. “ Thump ! Crunch ! ” 

That time we struck with all our heft. The 
Dora Bassett shook all over. She riz, still shak- 
ing, and the next wave threw her clean over the 
bar. We was in deep water for a minute, but 
just a little ways off was another line of breakers. 
And astern was the rudder, broke clean off, and 
floating away. 

’Twas no time for fooling. Hartley got to his 
knees, white, and holding his left arm with his 
right hand. I jumped and cast off the sheet. She 
floated then on a more even keel. Then I yanked 
loose the oar from its cleats alongside the rail 
and got it over the stem to steer with. 

This got her under control, and down the lane, 
between them two lines of breakers, we went, me 
with the sheet in one hand, the oar braced under 
t’other arm, and the three-reefed mainsail well out. 
The cockpit was half full of v/ater. 

The lane of deep water narrowed up ahead of 
us and there was a kind of gate, as you might 
say, at the end. Hartley looked at me and I at 
him. 


300 


MR . PRATT 


“ Can you? ” he asks. He was white as paper, 
but not from being scared I was sure. His 
left arm hung down straight and he kept rub- 
bing it. 

“ Lord knows,” I says. “ Are you hurt? ” 

He didn’t answer; just shook his head. On 
went the Dora Bassett. Bless the old girl’s heart ! 
She was doing her best to pull us through. 

The gate was just in front of our nose. I set 
my teeth and headed her for the middle of it. A 
jiffy more, and the crazy breakers jumped at us 
from both sides. Their froth flew over us in 
chunks. Then we was through, and I fetched my 
first decent breath. 

We was in a kind of pond now, where we had 
elbow room. 

Martin looked astern. “ Here comes a boat,” 
says he. 

’Twas the lifeboat from the station. They’d 
seen our trouble and was coming full tilt. I hadn’t 
ever been took off my own boat by no life-savers, 
and I wa’n’t going to begin. 

“Heave to!” hails the crew cap’n from the 
boat. “ We’re coming to take you off.” 

I didn’t answer. 

“Heave to!” he yells again. “Heave to!” 


ACROSS THE BAY, 


3° i 


I turned my head a little ways. 

“ Go home and get your breakfast,” I sings out. 
“ We’re busy.” 

They kept on for a ways, and then they give it 
up. I ran two or three more of them lanes and 
then, when I had the chance, I dropped my main- 
sail and histed the jib. And with that jib and the 
oar I picked my way for another spell, in and out 
and betwixt and between. At last we slid past 
the Wapatomac breakwater and up to the wharf. 
A nice piece of work for anybody’s boat, if I do 
say it. 

Hartley seemed to think so, too, for says he, 
“ Skipper, that was beautiful. You’re a wonder.” 

“ Twenty minutes of six,” says I. “ We’re on 
time.” 

There was an early-bird lobsterman on the 
wharf, come down to see how many of his pots 
had gone adrift in the night. He stood and stared 
at us. 

“ God sakes! ” says he. “ Where’d you come 
from? ” 

“ Wellmouth,” says I, making fast to a ring 
bolt. 

“ In her? ” he says, pointing to the sloop. “ In 
this gale? Never in the world! ” 


302 


MR. PRATT 


“ All right. Then we didn’t.” I hadn’t no 
time to waste arguing. 

“ Good land of love ! ” he says, kind of to him- 
self. “ Say ! she must be something of a boat.” 

I looked at the poor old Dora Bassett . Rudder 
gone centerboard smashed, rail carried away, and 
hull nigh filled with water. 

“ She was” says I. “ Considerable of a boat.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


POOR REDNY 

H ARTLEY had climbed on the wharf and 
now he was heading for the village. I 
got the sloop fast, after a fashion, and 
then run over and caught up with him. He was 
walking with long steps and looking straight 
ahead. His left fist was in the side pocket of his 
jacket and his face was set and pale under the tan. 
I happened to bump into him as I come alongside, 
and he jumped and gave a little groan. 

“ What’s the matter with that arm of yours? ” 
I asked, anxious. He’d stopped for a second and 
was biting his lips together. 

“ Nothing,” he says, short. “ Bruised a lit- 
tle, I guess. Where’s the hotel? ” 

“ Up the main road a piece. That’s it, on top 
of the hill.” 

“ Come on then,” says he, walking faster than 
ever. 

We went through Wapatomac village like we 
303 


3°4 


MR. PRATT 


was walking for money. Some of the town folks 
was just getting up, and you could see smoke com- 
ing from kitchen chimneys and window shades 
being hoisted. Once in a while, where the fami- 
lies was particularly early risers, I smelt fried 
potatoes cooking for breakfast; them and smoked 
herring. In the center, by the post-office, the fel- 
ler that keeps the market was just taking down his 
store shutters. He looked at us kind of odd. 

“ Good morning,” he says. “ Going to fair off 
at last, ain’t it? ” 

“ Guess likely,” says I, keeping on. 

“You been on the water, ain’t you?” he asks. 
“ Get caught down to the Point? ” 

Long Point’s a great place for Wapatomac folks 
to go on clamming and fishing trips. I suppose he 
thought we’d been out the day afore, when it 
cleared that time, and had had to put in at the 
station over night. We must have looked like 
we’d been through the mill. Both of us was sop- 
ping wet, and I had on rubber boots and a sou- 
’wester. I’d thrown off my ileskin coat at the 
wharf. 

I didn’t stop to explain. I had to save my 
breath to keep up with Martin. The nigher he 
got to the hotel the faster he walked. 


POOR REDNY, 


305 


The Wapatomac House is about the toniest 
summer place on our part of the coast. A great 
big building, with piazzas and a band stand, and 
windows and wind-mills and bowling alleys till 
you can’t rest. We turned in between the stone 
posts at the end of the driveway and went pound- 
ing across the lawns and flower beds. 

There was a sleepy-looking clerk behind the 
desk in the big hall. Nobody else was in sight, 
and the whole outfit of empty chairs and scattered 
newspapers had that lonesome look of having been 
up all night. Oh, yes! and there was a colored 
man mopping the floor. 

Hartley went up to the desk, leaving muddy foot 
marks right where the darkey had been scrubbing. 

“ Good morning,” he says to the clerk. “ Doc- 
tor Jordan, of Providence, is one of your guests, 
isn’t he?” 

The clerk put down the book he was reading 
and looked us over. He done it deliberate and 
chilly, same as hotel clerks always do. If there’s 
any one mortal that can make the average man feel 
like apologizing for living without a license, it’s 
a slick, high collared, fancy shirt-bosomed hotel 
clerk. 

“ What? ” says the clerk, frosty and slow. 


30 6 


MR. PRATT 


44 Doctor Jordan, of Providence. Is he here? ” 

His Majesty looked at his book again afore he 
answered. Then he put his thumb between the 
pages to mark the place, and condescends to drawl 
out: 

“ What do you want with him? ” 

For once he’d made a mistake. There are 
times when it ain’t wise to judge a feller by his 
general get-up. Martin stiffened, and he spoke 
clear and sharp. 

“ Answer my question, if you please,” says he. 
44 Is the doctor here? ” 

“ No, he ain’t.” 

44 Where is he?” 

44 Gone.” 

I felt sick. Maybe Hartley did too, but he 
didn’t show it . 

44 Where has he gone? ” he asks. 

44 I don’t know that I’ve got to ” 

44 / know. And for your own good, my friend, 
I advise that you tell me. Where is Doctor Tor- 
dan?” 

The Emperor come down off his throne a little. 
I cal’late he figgered that ’twas good policy. 

“ He’s gone to Brantboro,” he says. “ He 
went yesterday morning and he’s to leave there 


POOR REDNY 


307 


for Boston this forenoon. Then he’s going to 
Bar Harbor for the rest of his vacation. Any- 
thing else you’d like to know? ” 

This last part was loaded to the gunwale with 
sarcasm. 

“ Yes,” says Hartley emphatic. “ Where is 
the Doctor staying in Brantboro ? ” 

“ Cold Spring House. Want to know what he 
pays for his room? ” 

Martin didn’t answer. He walked to the door. 
I stopped for a jiffy. 

“ See here, my smart aleck,” says I to the clerk, 
“ you’ll have some more fun from this later on, 
when your boss hears of it. Do you know who 
’tis you’ve been sassing? That young man is John 
D. Vanderbilt of New York.” 

There is some satisfaction in a first-class lie. 
It done me good to see that clerk shrivel up. 

Martin was calling to me. “ Sol,” he asks, 
like a flash, “ how can I get to Brantboro? ” 

“ You can’t — in time to catch that morning 
train. Brantboro’s ten mile off, and the train that 
gets here at twenty-five minutes of eight, leaves 
there at seven-fifteen. That was the one we was 
to have the doctor on. And it’s past six now.” 

He spun around on his heel. “ Is the telegraph 


3 o8 MR . PRATT 

line to Brantboro working?” he asked the 
clerk. 

“No, sir! no, sir.” My! but he was polite. 
“ I’m sorry to say not, sir.” 

“ Can I get a horse here? ” 

“The livery-stable is right around the corner; 
but I don’t think ” 

We was at that livery-stable in less than two 
shakes. The feller that took care of the horses 
and slept in the stable loft was up and sweeping 
out. 

“ Have you got a horse that will take me to 
Brantboro in half an hour? ” asks the Twin. 

The feller stared at him. “Be you crazy?” 
says he. 

Martin didn’t answer. “ Whose machine is 
that? ” he asks. 

He was pointing to a big automobile in the 
stable. A great big red thing, with a shiny painted 
hull and nickel-plated running rigging. 

“ Mr. Shearer’s. He’s away for a week and 
we’re keeping it for him.” 

“ Can I hire it? ” 

The feller’s mouth fell open like ’twas on hinges. 

“ Hire it? Hire Mr. Shearer’s automobile?” 
says he. “ Well, I’ll be darned! ” 


POOR REDNY 


309 


“Where’s your employer?” asks Hartley, 
quick. 

“ Hey?” 

“Your boss /” I sings out, dancing up and 
down. “ For the land sakes wake up ! Where 
is he?” 

“ In the house, I guess. Where do you ” 

We met the livery-stable owner just coming 
out of his kitchen with a pan of leavings for the 
pig. He’d just turned out. I knew him; his 
name was Ben Baker. Martin went at him hot- 
foot, speaking in short sentences. 

“ I want to hire that auto in your stable,” he 
says. “ I must get to Brantboro before seven 
o’clock. I’ll pay any price. But I must have it.” 

Then there was more arguing. Baker said no. 
Was we crazy? He couldn’t let another man’s 
auto to the Almighty himself. And Mr. Shearer’s 
auto, of all things ! Why, Shearer would kill him. 
And so forth and so on. 

But Hartley kept cool. He must have the ma- 
chine. He’d be responsible for damages. He 
explained about the doctor. 

“ I’ll pay you — so and so,” says he. Never 
mind the price he offered. It was so big that I 
wouldn’t be believed if I told it. Baker didn’t 


3io 


MR . PRATT 


believe it either till Martin pulled out a roll of 
bills and showed him. 

“ I’ll buy the thing if necessary,” says he. 
“ But I’ll have it. Come, skipper.” 

“ The shofer’s up at Shearer’s house,” says 
Baker. “ He ” 

“ Never mind the shofer. I can run it. Send 
your man with us, and I’ll leave the machine in 
his care at Brantboro. Then the shofer can come 
after it. I’ll write to Mr. Shearer and explain. 
Come on.” 

“ It’s all right, Ben,” I says. “ He’ll do all he 
tells you, and more. You’ll never make a chunk 
of money any easier.” 

Baker followed us to the barn, saying “ No,” all 
the time. He kept on saying it while the Twin 
was getting up steam, or some such trick, in the 
auto. He said it even after he’d got the money 
in his hand. The hired man climbed in behind. 
Hartley and me was in front. We chuff-chuffed 
out of the stable door. 

“For heaven’s sake!” hollers Baker, “take 
care of the thing. I don’t know what ’ll come to 
me for this job when Shearer hears of it.” 

We got down to the street. I looked at my 
watch. It was twenty-five minutes past six. 


POOR REDNY. 


31 


“ Now, Sol,” says Hartley, “ you must help me 
if I need you. I can use only one hand, so you pull 
whatever lever I tell you to. Hold your hair on. 
We’re going to goP 

We went — oh yes, we went I I’d never rode in 
a buzz cart afore and inside of five minutes I was 
figgering that I’d never live to ride in one again. 
Suffering ! how we did fly ! 

Lucky ’twas early. We didn’t meet a soul on 
the road. If we had they’d had lively times get- 
ting out of our way. Away ahead somewheres 
there’d be a house with a dog scooting out of the 
gate, his mouth open ready to bark. Next minute 
we’d go past that house like a sky-rocket, and the 
pup would be digging a breathing hole through the 
dust behind us. I didn’t have to pull a lever, for 
we had a clear field. Good thing I didn’t, because 
I was too scared to know my hands from my feet. 
The stable man was actually blue. Next time I 
see Baker he told me that the feller had nightmare 
for a fortnight afterwards, and they could hear 
him yelling “ Whoa ! ” in his sleep as plain as 
could be. And they in the house with the win- 
dows shut. 

Afore I had time to think straight, scarcely, or 
remember to say more than a line or two of “ Now 


312 


MR. PRATT 


I lay me,” we was sizzling through Brantboro. 
We whirled into the big yard of the Cold Spring 
House and hauled up by the steps. Hartley piled 
out and I followed him. We’d used up just 
eighteen minutes. 

“ Here ! ” says he to the clerk, a twin brother 
of the one at Wapatomac; “ take this to Dr Jor- 
dan’s room.” 

He scribbled something on a slip of paper and 
chucked it across the desk. The clerk yelled for 
a boy and the boy took the paper and lit out. 
Pretty quick he comes back. 

“ He wants you to come right up, Mister,” says 
he. 

“ Good! ” says Martin, tossing him half a dol- 
lar. “ Lead the way.” 

The youngster started for the stairs, grinning 
like a punkin lantern. I flopped into a chair and 
felt myself all over to make sure I hadn’t shook 
no part of me loose on the trip. Likewise I 
watched the clock. 

In ten minutes more the Twin comes downstairs, 
and Doctor Jordan was with him. The doctor 
was a big gray-haired man with a pleasant face. 
He looked as though he’d dressed in a hurry, and 
he had a traveling satchel in his hand. 


POOR REDNY 


313 


u I’ll send you a check for my bill later,” he says 
to the clerk. “ All ready, Mr. Hartley.” 

We went out to the automobile. Martin started 
her up and we whizzed for the depot. 

“ Great Scott! ” says the doctor, “ I feel as if 
I had been pulled out of bed by the hair. Nobody 
but your father’s son could do this to me, Hartley. 
Have you fellers fed yet? ” 

The Twin was too busy with the steering wheel 
to answer. I done it for him. 

“No, sir,” says I; “not since yesterday noon. 
Nor slept since night afore last.” 

Martin run the automobile into one of the horse 
sheds by the depot. Then he passed the stable 
man the bill that happened to be on the outside of 
his roll. ’Twas a tenner, for I caught a glimpse 
of it. 

“ Here,” he says; “ take this and wait here till 
the shofer comes for the machine. Well, skipper, 
we’re on time, after all.” 

So we was, and ahead of it. We waited on the 
depot platform. I noticed that Hartley wa’n’t 
saying much. Now that the excitement was over, 
he seemed to me to be mighty quiet. Once, when 
he walked, I thought he staggered. And he was 
awful white. 


3*4 


MR. PRATT 


“ Sol,” he says to me, just as the train hove in 
sight; “ you needn’t come with us, unless you want 
to. Maybe you’d like to stay and attend to your 
boat” 

I looked at him. “ No,” says I. “ I’m going 
to see it through. The boat can wait.” 

I had to give him a boost up the car steps. As 
he got to a seat, he staggered again. 

“ Skipper,” he says, quiet and with little stops 
between words, “ I’m — afraid — you’ll — have — to 
— look — out for the doctor. I’m believe I’m 
going — to — to — make a fool of myself.” 

And then he flops over on the cushions in a 
dead faint. 

Doctor Jordan was at him in a second. 

“ It’s his arm, I guess,” says I. “ He bruised 
it aboard the sloop.” 

The doctor pulled up Hartley’s coat sleeve and 
felt of the arm. 

“ Bruised it! ” he says. “ I should say he did. 
The arm is broken.” 

Now you can bet that Martin Hartley wa’n’t 
the only sick man aboard that train just then. 
There was another one and he’d been christened 
Solomon. When I heard that doctor say that the 
Twin’s arm was broken I give you my word I 


POOR REDNY 


3*5 


went cold all over. Think of the grit of the feller 
— the clean up and down grit of him ! Rampaging 
around, running automobiles and chasing doctors, 
and all that with a broken arm. And never even 
mentioning it. I took off my hat to that New 
Yorker. Crazy or not he could have my vote for 
any job from pound-keeper to President. 

I wa’n’t much good, but Doctor Jordan was a 
whole team and the dog under the wagon. He 
sent me for the conductor and between us we got 
Hartley into the baggage car and away from the 
crowd of passengers. 

Then we rigged up a kind of bed for him on a 
pile of trunks and the doctor went to work. 

He got Martin’s coat off and his shirt-sleeve up 
and had a good look at the arm. Hartley opened 
his eyes while the examination was going on. 

“ Broken, doctor, isn’t it? ” he asks, weak. 

“ Yes,” says Jordan. “ Only a simple fracture 
of the forearm though. We’ll get off at the next 
station and find a comfortable place for you.” 

But he wouldn’t hear of it. Not much he 
wouldn’t. He was going to see that that doctor 
went straight on to Eastwich. Said he’d had too 
much trouble getting him on that train to let him 
off it now, even if ’twas his neck instead of his arm 


MR. PRATT 


316 

that was cracked. There was considerable pow- 
wow, but finally Jordan give in. 

“ All right,” he says. “ Needs must if the old 
gentleman drives. The arm is in better shape 
than you deserve, considering how you’ve treated 
it. I’ll make a temporary bandage, put you off 
at your home station, and come back and set the 
bone as soon as I can leave the boy. Hand me 
that box over there, conductor, please.” 

With a slat off a box in the baggage, and pieces 
of Hartley’s shirt, he spliced that arm as pretty as 
a picture. Then he rigged up a sling made of a 
couple of handkerchiefs, and there was the patient 
in pretty fair shape, considering. 

When we got to Wellmouth the conductor — a 
mighty decent feller, he was — held up the train 
while I made arrangements with the driver of the 
Old Home House depot wagon to take Martin to 
the hotel. I was for going with him, but he put 
his foot down on that plan in a hurry. 

“ No, sir! ” says he. “ I want you to see that 
the goods are delivered. You get Jordan to the 
school on time and find out if there’s anything else 
you can do to help over there. Then you can 
come back if you want to; but don’t you show your 
head around me till the contract is carried out. If 


POOR RED NY 


3i7 


you do — well, my right arm’s in pretty good con- 
dition yet.” 

In spite of the pain I knew he was in he man- 
aged to pump up a grin. I grinned back, but there 
was a big lump just astern of my swallowing gear. 

The train got to Eastwich on time, and Lord 
James was waiting with the team at the depot. 
We drove to the Fresh Air farm like we was going 
to a fire. Miss Talford was at the door. 

“ Here’s the doctor,” I says. “ How’s the 
boy?” 

“ The pain is a little easier now, we think,” says 
she. “ Come right upstairs, Doctor Jordan. It 
was so good of you to come. Agnes hasn’t slept 
since he was taken ill.” 

I followed the doctor and the Talford girl up to 
the bedroom. A mighty pretty room ’twas, too; 
all flowered paper, and colored pictures and sun- 
shine. But I didn’t notice these things much. 

Poor little Redny! There he laid, in the mid- 
dle of the big bed, his brick top shining against the 
pillow and the freckles on his nose like red paint 
spots on a whitewashed wall. He knew me and 
the first thing he said was, “ Hello, Andrew Jack- 
son.” That was the name I’d always called him. 

Agnes Page was there, sitting by the bed, hold- 


3*8 


MR. PRATT 


ing the little feller’s hand. She looked mighty 
hollow-eyed and pale. She shook Doctor Jordan’s 
hand and thanked him for coming. She shook 
mine too, and I noticed how her hand trembled. 

The Duncan doctor was there, ready to begin 
his carving. Dried-up young squirt, with whiskers 
as scattering as corn-stalks in the Ozone garden. 

“ Er — Doctor Jordan,” says he, “ awfully 
sorry you’ve been put to all this trouble. Entirely 
without my sanction, I assure you. A most simple 
case of appendicitis. I should have operated im- 
mediately whether you arrived or not.” 

Jordan went across to the bed. He looked the 
boy over, careful as could be, thumping him, and 
listening, and asking questions about where he felt 
the worst, and all that. After a while he looked 
at Duncan, and says he: 

“ The pain doesn’t seem to be localized as yet.” 

“ No — er — not yet,” answers t’other doctor, 
pompous. “ But, of course, that’s quite usual — 
often the regular thing. Er — yes.” 

Jordan nodded. Then he asked a few more 
questions; when the youngster was took sick, and 
how it begun, and the like of that. Finally he 
says to Redny: 

“ What have you been eating lately? ” 


POOR REDNY 


3*9 


“ Aw, I don’t know, sir. Miss Agnes give me 

some jelly and some mush and cream and ” 

“ Yes, I know. But those are what you’ve 
had inside the house. What have you eaten out- 
side? I noticed an orchard back of the farm here. 
There were some very pretty late apples on the 
trees. How do they taste? ” 

Redny looked worried, seemed to me. He 
fidgeted with the edge of the bed-spread. 

“ I ain’t et only a few of ’em,” he says. “ The 

ones on the ground was wormy, so ” 

Miss Agnes broke in here. 44 He couldn’t have 
eaten those apples, Doctor,” she says. 44 I’ve 
expressly forbidden the children to touch them.” 

44 Yes, of course,” says Jordan. “ But I’ve had 
the advantage of being a boy once myself. The 
apples on the ground were wormy, you say. How 
were those on the trees ? And how many did you 
eat — well, say night before last? ” 

“ Only six,” says Redny, beginning to snuffle. 
44 I knocked ’em down with a rock. They was 
»> 

44 I see,” Jordan smiled, quiet, and stood up, 
44 Doctor,” he says to Duncan, 44 I wouldn’t oper- 
ate yet awhile. He seems to be much easier now. 
I think it will be safe to wait.” 


320 


MR. PRATT 


Duncan bristles up and waved his hand, pomp- 
ous. He was going to speak, I guess, but all at 
once the sense of what Jordan meant seemed to 
work down through his skull. He looked at me. 

I was beginning to grin. Then he looked at Ag- 
nes and Margaret; they looked queer, and Miss 
Talford’s mouth was twitching at the corners. He 
turned as red as a smallpox flag. 

“ I — I — why didn’t you tell me about those 
apples, boy? ” he asks, sharp. 

“ You never asked me,” snuffles Redny. “ All 
you asked me was what I had for supper, and I 
told you.” 

“ Green apples, hey?” says I, more to myself 
than anybody else. “ Humph! Well, they never 
operated for them when I was a boy.” 

I went down to the kitchen pretty soon after 
that. Eureka was there and she and me had a 
big talk. Duncan come stomping down a little 
later and went out and slammed the door. 

“ Humph ! ” snaps Eureka, bobbing her head 
the way she always done; “ he ain’t going to get 
the chance to try his tricks on that boy. Pesky 
thing ! Why don’t he run a butcher shop ? Then 
he could cut up and saw and be happy, and nobody 
’d be killed except them that was dead already.” 


POOR REDNY 3ai 

By and by Agnes came to the door and called 
to me. 

“ Mr. Pratt,” she says, when her and me was 
in the hall together, “ how can I thank you for 
what you’ve done for me and for that poor little 
child?” 

“ You can’t,” I says, short. “ Because I ain’t 
done nothing. It’s Mr. Hartley that ” 

“ I know. Doctor Jordan has told me some. 
Please tell me the rest. How is he? Is his arm 
badly hurt? Is he suffering? Do you think 
there’s any danger? ” 

Here was my chance. And I just spread my- 
self, too, now I tell you. I spun the whole yarn, 
from the time the Dora Bassett pulled out of 
Horsefoot Bar cove to when Hartley was loaded 
into the Old Home depot wagon. 

“ He’s a brick, that’s what he is,” says I, finally. 

And he always was one. And there’s one thing 
more I’m going to tell, now that I’ve got my hand 
in, Miss Page. That’s about that business with 
Washy Sparrow. Mr. Hartley wa’n’t no more to 
be blamed for that than a ” 

She stopped me. “ Please don’t,” she says. 
“ I know; Eureka told me. And Mr. Pratt,” she 
adds, and her face lit up like there was a glory 


322 


MR. PRATT 


inside it; “ I’m not going to ask you to beg his 
pardon for me. But will you tell him that, as 
soon as I can leave Dennis, I’m coming to Well- 
mouth to ask his pardon myself, and — to thank 
him? Tell him that, please.” 

Eureka and me drove back to Wellmouth to- 
gether. If that old buggy had been trimmed up 
to match the feelings of the two inside it ’twould 
have been the gayest turnout that ever come down 
the pike road. No circus cart would have been 
in it. 

But poor Van ! 


CHAPTER XIX 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 

I LEFT Eureka at Nate Scudder’s. She was 
going to have him take his dory and row 
her over to the Island. She was to see to 
things there till I come. Dewey was all right and 
over his cold, she told me, so she could take up her 
regular job again. Scudder was glad to see us. 
I don’t know but he’d been scared that his whole 
gang of lodgers had cleared out and left him in 
the lurch. I told him about the doctor chase. 
His eyes stuck out. 

“ Godfrey scissors ! ” says he. “ It must have 
cost that Hartley man a lot for that automobile.” 
“Cost! ’’says I. “ You bet it did! ” 

“ I presume likely that’ll come out of the doc- 
tor’s bill, won’t it? ” 

“No,” I says, scornful. “Land of Goshen! 
No. Why should it?” 

“ Well, if ’twas me I’d take some of it out. 
The doc hadn’t no right to be way over to Brant- 
boro after giving folks notice through the papers 
323 


324 


MR. PRATT 


that he was to Wapatomac.” He thought a min- 
ute more and then he says, “ Say, Sol; don’t you 
cal’late there’s a commission coming to us from 
Ben Baker? He’d never let that auto wagon if 
we hadn’t provided the customer.” 

Didn’t that beat all? Sometimes I think Nate 
Scudder ’ll rise up in his coffin afore they bury him 
and want a commission from the undertaker. He’ll 
never rest easy and see all that cash going to some- 
body else when he’s furnishing the center of in- 
terest. 

I found Martin planted easy and pretty com- 
fortable in an upstairs front room at the Old 
Home. His arm was hurting him some, of 
course, but other ways he felt better, having had 
a nap and something to eat. He wa’n’t sick in 
bed at least; and that’s how I expected to find him. 

I told him the good news from Redny, and it 
pleased him ’most to death. Then I give him the 
Page girl’s message. He didn’t say much, but 
’twas plain to see how he felt. I promised to be 
back next morning, and then I said good-by. 
His good-by to me was sort of absent-minded. I 
left him smoking and looking dreamy out of the 
window. 

I was in a hurry to get to Ozone but I couldn’t 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 


325 

help stopping where they was digging the cellar 
for the new part of the hotel, and looking for our 
old friend Washy Sparrow. He was wheeling 
dirt in a wheelbarrow and he seemed mighty will- 
ing to let go of the handles and talk to me. 

“ Hello, Washy,” I says. “ How’s the stomach 
and lungs these days? ” 

He groaned. “ Pratt,” says he, “ I’m dying 
on my feet.” 

“ Well,” I says, looking down at his cowhides, 
“ you’d ought to have plenty of room to do it in. 
What are you dying of — dropsy? You’re' five 
pounds heavier than when I see you last.” 

He shook his head. “ Tell Reky I’m doing my 
best to forgive her,” he says. “ When I’m gone 
maybe she’ll think of how she treated me. Say! 
how soon’s she coming home? Lycurgus can’t 
cook fit to eat.” 

I told him Eureka ’d be home that night. It 
seemed to give him a little more hopes. 

“ When you see Miss Page,” says he, “ just tell 
her I want to talk to her, won’t you? Tell her 
I’m ’most through with this world and I want to 
speak to her about providing for the children. 
Ask her to come over and see me.” 

Just then the foreman yelled to him to stop 


MR . PRATT 


326 

gassing and hustle that wheelbarrow along. He 
done it, surprising prompt too, I thought. I 
asked the foreman about it. 

“Oh!” he says, “Mr. Brown’s give me the 
receipt for him. Every time he groans or coughs 
I set him to lugging stones; the louder the groans 
the bigger the rocks. He’s getting well fast.” 

I took Nate’s dory and went across to the Island. 
Eureka was up to her elbows in work. 

^LSakes alive!” says she. “Who’s been let- 
tirfg fhis house get this way? The tea kettle bot- 
tom’s' burnt out and somebody’s been trying to eat 
the axe. And the beds are so wet that the feathers 
are beginning to grow.” 

“ That’s the Natural Life,” I told her. “ The 
Heavenlies lived it for a whole day.” 

“ I thought they lived it afore I come here at 
all,” she says. “ Things was bad enough then, 
but nothing like this.” 

“ ’Twas me that was the Natural then,” says I. 
“ This last attack hit the Twins.” 

“ Do you know who I think ought to live the 
Natural Life? ” she asks. 

I said I didn’t. 

“ Nobody but natural born idiots, that’s who.” 

“ I guess that’s who’s been living it,” says I. 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 


327 


Next morning I went over to see Hartley. He 
was feeling like a new man. Doctor Jordan had 
been there ahead of me and set the arm. Redny 
was pretty nigh well. Jordan had the right cure 
for green apple appendicitis and it worked tip- 
top. 

I drove up to the depot in the Old Home 
wagon and met Van Brunt. He was in fine spirits. 
The Tea Lead deal had been closed up — the Street 
pirates having decided not to pass the dividend—^ 
and the Heavenly Twins had made money byL>>> 
keg, I judged. 

“ How’d New York look to you?” I asked 
him. 

“Hush!” says he. “Don’t speak lightly of 
sacred things.” 

When he heard about what had happened while 
he was away he was the most surprised man in the 

county. 

ys, grabbing my hand, “ you’re 
a star of the first magnitude. You and Eureka 
are the redeeming features of this Natural experi- 
ment. You pay the freight and a large rebate 
over. And Martin! bully old boy! I want to 
see him.” 

Him and his chum was shut up together for a 


328 


MR. PRATT 


good half hour. When Van come down to the 
porch he beckoned to me. 

“ Sol,” he says, “ there’s another question I 
want to ask you. Of course I know that Martin 
liked the boy and all that, but that reason won’t 
quite do. What’s the real one? ” 

’Twas a ticklish place for me. But I couldn’t 
see but one way clear; that is, but one way which 
was best in the long run for all hands. So I 
spunked up and answered. 

U/ Mr. Van Brunt,” says I, “ I hate to say it, 
but of course you know that your partner and Miss 
Agnes set considerable store by each other at one 
time. And you can’t break off feelings like that 

same as you’d bust a piece of string. I ” 

He nodded. “ All right,” he says. “ I’m not 
altogether a blockhead. That’ll do. I’ve been 
sure of it, myself, for some time.” 

“ I understand,” I went on, “ that the reason 
she give him the mitten was on account of his being 
too grasping after money. If she’d seen him, like 
I have, just throwing it away as if ’twas shavings, 

I guess likely she ” 

He interrupted and looked at me queer. 

“How did you know that was the reason?” 
he asks. 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 


329 


I’d put my foot in it away over the shoe laces. 

“ Well,” I stammered, “ you see I — that is, 
’twas told to me — and — course I can’t swear ” 

“ Who told it? Oh, never mind. I see. Dear 
James! Well done, good and faithful servant. 
You’ve been faithful over a few things, and gen- 
eral superintendent and advertiser of all the rest. 
Sol, I learned something when I was in New York. 
Considering all you’ve done and know, I think 
you’re entitled to know more. 

“ When I was in God’s settlement yesterday,” 
he went on, referring to his home town, I judged, 
though I’d never heard afore that it belonged in 
that neighborhood, “ I met an old friend of Hart- 
ley’s governor — of his father, I mean. This 
friend had been abroad for some time and had 
just returned. He spoke of Martin, and what a 
fine fellow he was; to all of which I set my hand 
and seal, of course. Then he said that the way 
in which young Hartley had paid his father’s debts 
and saved the family honor and credit was one of 
the biggest things he knew of. I expressed sur- 
prise. Then he was surprised to learn that I 
didn’t know, being Martin’s closest friend, and 
told me the rest. 

“ It seemed that Hartley senior was heavily in- 


330 


MR. PRATT 


volved when he died. He had speculated and 
his affairs were in horrible shape. Martin didn’t 
know of this until the old gentleman, on his death 
bed, sprung it on him. So then the plucky chap 
started in to save the name. He arranged with 
the creditors — this man who told me the story 
was one of them — for time, and set to work. He 
worked nights and days and in his sleep, I guess. 
He had promised his dad, for his mother’s sake, 
not to tell a soul, and he didn’t. Every creditor 
was pledged to secrecy. Even his own mother 
didn’t know it to the day of her death. But he 
paid dollar for dollar and broke down when it was 
over. That’s why he was willing to join with me 
in this hunt of ours after the Natural Life. Ag* 
nes’ cutting him made him reckless, I suppose. 
And when he was on his feet again financially, he 
lost interest in the whole game.” 

“ And now that he’s well and husky,” I says, 
“ her mistake about his doings with the old man 
Sparrow set him going at it again. I suppose his 
digging in the hardest and keeping it quiet on 
account of his promise, was what made her call him 
a money grabber. I might have known ’twas 
something like that.” 

“ So might I,” he says, “ if I wasn’t such a care- 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 


33 1 


less, happy-go-lucky idiot. You see I always 
thought that the ‘ mercenary ’ business was only 
a cloak for the real reason of their breaking off. 
She only took up with me because our people 
wanted her to. IVe been sure of that for a good 
while. But why Martin didn’t come to me when 
he was in trouble, instead of going it alone like a 

bull-headed chump, is ” 

He stopped and went to thinking. I looked at 
him and I guess there was a question in my face, 
for he answered it without my saying a word. 

“ Certainly I shall tell her,” says he. “ When 
is the next train to Eastwich? ” 

He went to the school that afternoon, and 
stayed at the Bay View House over there that 
night. Next day, afore I left the Island, Hartley 
comes rowing over with Scudder. He was feeling 
chipper as could be and, except for the arm in a 
sling, you wouldn’t have known there was anything 
the matter with him. 

About eleven or so that forenoon Eureka comes 
running out to the hen-yard where I was. Her 
face was on the broad grin. 

“ They’re coming,” says she. “ The whole of 
’em!” 


“ Who?” 


332 


MR. PRATT 


“Why Miss Agnes and Miss Talford. Nate 
Scudder is rowing ’em and Mr. Van Brunt is 
along, too.” 

And so they was. I could see the dory half 
way across already. 

“Hooray!” I sings out. “Let’s tell Hart- 
ley.” 

“ Don’t you dare tell him,” she orders. “ He’s 
in the house. You let him stay there. It’s your 
job to meet that boat and keep the rest of ’em 
out of the way.” 

I was at the beach when the dory landed. Miss 
Talford and Van got out first. Then comes Ag- 
nes Page. She stepped up to me and held out her 
hand. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Pratt,” she says. “ I’m 
very glad to see you.” 

“ Same here, ma’am, I’m sure,” says I. 
“ How’s Redny? ” 

“Who? Dennis? Oh, he’s almost well. We 
left James in charge of the children. Are you all 
well here? Is ” 

“Yes, ma’am. He’s doing first-rate. You’ll 
find him in the dining-room.” 

She reddened up like a climbing rose-bush in 
June, but she left me and headed for the house. 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 


333 


The minute she stepped her foot on the porch, 
that wise critter Eureka dodged out of the kitchen 
door. She knew her business, that girl did, and 
whether it had come to her by instinct or from 
Home Comforter reading don’t make an atom 
of difference. 

About twenty minutes after that I happened to 
have an errand in the kitchen. I made a dickens 
of a racket on purpose when I went in, but ’twas 
good work wasted. Hartley and the Page girl 
was standing by the parlor window looking out, 
and didn’t appear to hear a sound. They’d left 
the doors open and I could see ’em. Martin 
hadn’t only one whole arm, but he seemed to know 
what to do with that. 

Van Brunt come into the kitchen after a drink 
of water. He see the tableau in the parlor. 
When we was outside again he spoke. 

“ Well,” he says, with a kind of sigh, “ that 
settles it. And yet, by George! I’m glad. Yes, 
sir; it’s as it should be and I’m thoroughly glad 
of it.” 

I couldn’t think of nothing to comfort him, poor 
feller. But I squeezed his hand hard. I guess he 
knew what I thought of him and his self-sacri- 
fice. 


334 


MR. PRATT 


And yet, a couple of hours later, when I 
told Eureka, she didn’t seem to think so much 
of it. 

“Humph!” says she. “Self-sacrificing’s all 
right, but you look here.” 

She took me by the arm and led me to the wood- 
shed window. Down by the cove on the beach 
was Van Brunt and Margaret Talford, walking up 
and down together. They was both laughing and 
acting perfectly contented. 

Eureka gave me a nudge and a wink. “ I told 
you I had my ideas about him ,” says she. 

The Fresh Air girls went back to Eastwich that 
afternoon. When they had gone Van turns to 
me. 

“ And now, skipper,” says he, slapping his 
hands together brisk; “ now then for packing up, 
and back, back to little old New York. VOh, 
Uncle John! isn’t it nice on Broadway? ’ or words 
to that effect. ” 

They was all going together; the Heavenly 
Twins and Lord James and the Fresh Air girls 
and all their tribe. Redny’s sickness and the 
worry that it brought had made Agnes and Miss 
Talford anxious for the city, where doctors was 
plenty and green apples scarce. And the Twins 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 


335 


was pining for what Van called “ the intoxicating 
degeneracy of an effete ” (whatever that is) 
“ civilization.” 

We packed up. That is to say, me and Eureka 
packed up, while the Heavenlies superintended and 
enjoyed themselves. Scudder’s face, when he 
heard that his private gold mines was going to 
leave, was a sight to see. But, after a couple of 
lengthy interviews with the Twins, he seemed to 
feel better. 

“ I shall miss ’em terrible,” he says to me. “ But 
this world’s a valley of dry bones, anyhow, ain’t it, 
Pratt?” 

“ Valley of dry bones,” and “ fleeing to the ark 
of safety ” was his pet words when he testified in 
prayer-meeting. 

“ I guess so,” I says. “ Still I wouldn’t kick if 
I had your knack of getting double price per pound 
for the bones. You’ve managed to fertilize with 
’em pretty well, Nate.” 

He fetched a sigh. “ They’re such nice oblig- 
ing fellers,” he says. “ And such good hands at 
business. Never no beating down nor jockeying 
for a trade. I always feel perfectly safe in deal- 
ing with ’em.” 

I cal’lated that statement wa’n’t exaggerated. 


MR. PRATT 


336 

Most likely a shark feels the same way about 
dealing with a school of porgies. 

Nate had agreed to take back the hens and the 
pig, as an accommodation. He was to pay three 
dollars for the hog and the fowls was hove into the 
scales for good measure. There was a lease of 
the Island, too, that had to be canceled. Them 
simple-minded Tea Leaders had, in the first fever 
of Naturalness, signed a lease on Horsefoot Bar 
to run till November. Now that their pulse was 
normal again they wanted to break that lease, and 
the job was considerable more painful and expen- 
sive than breaking Hartley’s arm had been. But 
Nate let ’em break, though I thought he’d break 
them afore he got through. 

Him and Eureka and me had a good many talks 
about the Twins when we was alone together. 
The last of these talks we had on the afternoon of 
the day afore the grand final emigration. Lord 
James was over on an errand and he was in the 
kitchen with us. Eureka begun the talk. 

“ I ain’t quite made up my mind whether they’re 
really crazy or not,” she says, referring to the 
Heavenlies. “ They don’t act much more loony 
than some of the earls and such in books. And 
yet they must be some out of their minds or they 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 337 

wouldn’t do such fool things. Once they was all 
for living poor and Natural. Now they’re all the 
other way. Switching ’round like that is a sure 
sign of weakness in the top stories.” 

“ Most city folks act to me some crazy,” says I. 
“ And perhaps these two, being the toniest kind, 
is crazier than others. Maybe the higher up you 
go the loonier they get. I read in a paper once 
about how some rich big bug give a swell dinner to 
a pet monkey. The Twins are Solomons along- 
side of him. And, anyhow, they’re mighty nice 
young fellers. Money may have got to their 
heads, but their hearts is in the right place.” 

“ ’Taint a question of hearts,” says Scudder. 
“ Way I figger it out the Almighty sends ’em down 
here on purpose. We poor folks alongshore don’t 
have much chance to earn an honest living, and so 
the Lord takes pity on us and makes men like these 
two get cracked and hanker to live in the sand and 
spend money. You put your trust in the Higher 
Power. He evens matters up in the long run.” 

His Lordship broke in then; and my! but he 
was top-lofty and scornful. 

“ Crazy yourselves ! ” he sniffs. “ My ’eavens, 
I’ve done some traveling in my time, with Lord 
’Enry and the rest ; I’ve been all over. And never 


MR. PRATT 


338 

in my life ’ave I seen such a Gawd-forsaken coun- 
try as this, or such a blooming lot of ignorant 
’ayseeds as is ’ere. W’y, you don’t know ’ow to 
live at all and yet you’re proud of it. You ’aven’t 
no conveniences, and you eat with your knives, and 
you’ve no manners. Lord ’elp you, I say! You’re 
all crazy together, and don’t know ’ow to act in 
good society. Mr. Van Brunt and Mr. ’Artley is 
gentlemen, and what you call their craziness is noth- 
ing but the eccentricities of gentlemen. And if you 
think they 7 re eccentric 1 W’y compared to some 

I’ve worked for, like Lord ’Enry ” 

’Twas high time to stop him. “ But they’re so 
crazy loose with their money,” says I. 

He was hotter than ever. “ Do you suppose,” 
he asks sarcastic, “ that a real gentleman ’as time 
to ’aggie over a few dirty pennies? ” 

Nobody said any more for a spell. Then Eu- 
reka says, like she’d been thinking: 

“ I cal’late,” says she, “ that it’s all in the 
way you’ve been raised. Maybe I’d act just as 
queer and looney if I went to the city; that is, if 
I hadn’t posted myself up by my reading. I’ll 
lend you the Comforters with “ False but Fair” in 
’em, Mr. Pratt, some time.” 

Next day we all met at the Eastwich depot. 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 


339 


Agnes Page and Miss Talford and the Fresh Air 
tribe, including Redny, who was chipper and gay 
because he was going back to New York. The 
Heavenly Twins was there. So was me and Eu- 
reka to see ’em off. 

We spent fifteen minutes or more in saying good 
byes. I felt real bad and so did everybody else, 
I guess. Hartley and Agnes couldn’t say enough 
to me about my sailing through that gale for ’em 
in the Dora Bassett. The poor old sloop was still 
tied up to the Wapatomac wharf. Baker had 
been looking out for her and I was going over that 
afternoon myself. 

Agnes said she and Hartley would surely come 
back next summer. I must write and so would 
they. Eureka’s brothers and sisters was to have 
money to help along their schooling, and Washy 
Sparrow would keep wheeling rocks, or, if he 
didn’t, Squire Poundberry would attend to him. 

“ Pa wanted a holiday on account of your leav- 
ing, Miss Page,” says Eureka. “ But I told him 
’twould be a bigger celebration if he kept on to 
work.” 

Scudder wa’n’t at the depot. He was too busy 
moving the duds off of Ozone Island to get away. 
But he’d sent a package by Eureka. ’Twas a 


340 


MR. PRATT 


present for Van Brunt; something to remember 
him by, he said. 

Van opened it. Then there was a general “ haw 
haw.” ’Twas that worked worsted motto, 
“ What is Home Without a Mother? ” 

“ James,” says Van, bubbling over with laugh- 
ter, “ this is your property. I couldn’t deprive 
you of it.” 

His Lordship was disgusted. “ I wouldn’t ’ave 
the blooming thing in the ’ouse ; with all respect to 
you, sir,” says he. 

Agnes said she’d take it. It would be a splen- 
did souvenir. 

“ Scudder’s a kind-hearted chap,” says Van. 
“ He means well.” 

That was too much for me. I took a piece of 
paper out of my pocket. ’Twas a little bill I’d 
made out the night afore. 

“ Here,” I says; “ just run your eye over this, 
will you ? ” 

Van took it. It read so: J) 8 3"^ 

“The Natural Life, Dr., to Nathan Scudder, Nature’s 
Nobleman, Rough Diamond, and the like of that. 

1 5 loads of dirt, at $3.00 a load. That’s. . . . $45.00 

1 1 hens and 1 rooster at 30 cents a lb. That’s 1 2.60 and 
the hens and rooster. 

I hog — sold for $6.00 when he was little 


SIMPLE VERSUS DUPLEX 


341 


and thin, and bought back for $3.00 

when he was big and fat. That’s. $3.00 and 

the hog. 

160 quarts of skim-milk (he kept the cream 
and made it into butter to sell us) at 

9 cts. a quart. That’s 14.40 

About 50 lbs. of butter (made out of our 

cream) at 25 cts. alb. That’s 12.50 

Vegetables and truck (mostly from the store). 

That’s somewheres nigh 10.00 

Bedding and furniture and kitchen stuff. 

That’s about 75 .00 and 

all the stuff back again. 

Lease of Ozone Horsefoot Island for 3 months 
at #50 a month (a cent more than $4.00 
a year is like robbing your grandmarm). 


That’s. 150.00 

For cancelling the lease which was to run 

till November. That’s 40.00 

About 60 days, altogether, of secret keeping 
at $8.00 a day ($3.00 from E. V. 

B. and $5.00 from M. H.). Call it, say 480.00 

Total (it ain’t nigh all) $842.50 

And twelve hens and one hog and all the 
furniture and land knows what else be- 
sides.” 


“ And that don’t count in half of the Ozone 
cost,” I says; “ let alone what you fellers paid for 
hiring his house and Huldy Ann and all.” 

Hartley looked over his chum’s shoulder. 


342 


MR. PRATT 


“ Humph ! ” says he. “ I wouldn’t wonder if I 
could add an item to that. What did you pay 
for those shore-birds you got when you went gun- 
ning with Scudder, Van? ” 

Van blushed up some, but he answered prompt. 

“ Well,” he says, “ to tell the truth, Scudder 
sold ’em to me for five dollars.” 

“Yes?” says Martin, laughing. “I thought 
so. I paid him six for mine.” 

“ There’s no use talking” I put in; “ there may 
be some good things about living the Natural Life, 
but ” 

“ But,” interrupted Martin, “ the financial 
profits appear to lie in Scudder’s plan; that is, to 
have the ‘ good things ’ live it for you.” 

The train whistled up the road. Van leaned 
over and tapped me on the shirt front. 

“ Skipper,” says he, “ I won’t prophecy concern- 
ing next summer. Sufficient unto the day, etcetera. 
And I won’t answer for Martin. But for me, and 
for this winter, if anybody asks, you tell ’em I’ve 
gone back to New York to live the most compound, 
double duplex life to be found from Harlem to 
the Battery. That’s what!” says Edward Van 
Brunt. 






















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